College of Education – 91�� News

91��’s graduate and professional programs highly ranked by US News & World Report

Jackson Holtz — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:00:53 +0000

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs again were recognized as among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Photo: 91��

UPDATE April 7, 2026:��The original version of this story omitted two 91�� programs that were included in the rankings: Occupational Therapy (Tied for 20th) and Physical Therapy (Tied for 31st).��

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs again were recognized as among the best in the nation, according to .

Topping this year’s list include programs at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering in the College of Engineering and the College of Education. The College of Arts & Sciences and the College of the Environment also had top-rated programs.

In total, 81 graduate and professional degree programs across the 91�� placed in the top 35 in this year’s U.S. News rankings.

“These rankings highlight the strength and impact of the 91��’s graduate and professional programs,” said 91�� President Robert J. Jones. “These programs equip students with the skills and knowledge to meet critical workforce needs and serve society, while demonstrating the power of higher education to advance the public good. We are proud to foster an environment where students and faculty can thrive and have a real impact on the world around them.”

While the 91�� celebrates the success and impact of the programs recognized by U.S. News — and notes that many applicants use these rankings to help them select schools and discover potential areas of study — the University also recognizes shortcomings inherent in the ranking systems.

The 91�� School of Law and the 91�� School of Medicine withdrew from the U.S. News rankings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, citing concerns that some of the methodology in the rankings for those specific disciplines incentivize actions and policies that run counter to the schools’ public service missions.

91�� leaders continue to work with U.S. News and other ranking organizations to improve their methodologies, to the extent that the organizations are open to it. Schools, colleges and departments continually reevaluate the benefits and potential shortfalls of participating in specific rankings.

Excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, 29 91�� programs placed in the top 10, and 81 are in the top 35.

��The 91�� this year placed in the top 10 nationwide in public affairs, biostatistics,�� nursing, computer science, education, psychology, speech and language pathology, statistics and Earth sciences.

The 91��’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and tied for fifth in the nation this year. The Evans School’s environmental policy program was ranked second, while public finance and budgeting as well as leadership both ranked No. 10.

The 91�� School of Nursing’s doctor of nursing practice program tied for No. 1 among public institutions. The School of Public Health has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade, coming in this year at No. 9. The school also had three programs in the top 10: biostatistics, environmental health sciences and epidemiology.��

The 91��’s programs in speech and language pathology tied for No. 6.�� Two programs from the College of Education placed in the top 10. And the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering this year tied for seventh place overall with three programs ranked in the top 10, including artificial intelligence, programming language and systems.

U.S. News ranks biostatistics in two ways. 91�� ranked No. 3 as a science discipline that applies statistical theory and mathematical principles to research in medicine, biology, environmental science, public health and related fields. 91��’s School of Public Health ranked No. 7 in biostatistics as an area of study that trains students to apply statistical principles and methods to problems in health sciences, medicine and biology. At the 91��, biostatistics is a division of the School of Public Health.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. Programs in dentistry are not ranked.��

The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. relies on both expert opinions and statistical indicators.

TOP 10:

Library and Information Studies (overall): Two-way tie for 1st (ranked in 2025)

Public Affairs (environmental policy): 2nd

Library and information studies (digital librarianship): Two-way for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Biostatistics: 3rd

Physics (nuclear): Two-way tie for 3rd (ranked in 2024)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): Four-way tie for 4th

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): Four-way tie for 5th

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Two-way for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (systems): Tied for 6th

Education (elementary education): 6th

Psychology (clinical): Three-way tie for 6th

Speech-language pathology: Five-way tie for 6th

Statistics: Four-way tie for 6th

Public Health (biostatistics): 7th

Computer science (overall): Three-way tie for 7th

Computer science (programming language): Tied for 7th

Education (secondary education): 7th

Nursing (midwifery): Five-way tie for 7th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 7th

School of Social Work (overall): 7th (ranked in 2025)

Public Health (epidemiology): 8th

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 9th

Earth sciences: Tied for 9th��

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 9th

School of Public Health (overall): Tied for 9th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 10th

Public Affairs (public management and leadership): 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Five-way tie for 16th

Business (accounting): 10-way tie for 16th

Business (entrepreneurship): Five-way tie for 17th

Business (information systems): Three-way tie for 15th

Business (part-time MBA): Three-way tie for 11th

Business (full-time MBA): 20th

Business (management): Five-way tie for 25th

Business (marketing): Eight-way tie for 25th

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry: Seven-way tie for 22nd

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2024)

Computer science (theory): Tied for 11th

College of Education (overall): Tied for 24th

Education (administration): Tied for 11th

Education (curriculum/instruction): Tied for 12th

Education (policy): Tied for 14th

Education (special education): Tied for 12th

College of Engineering (overall): Three-way tie for 22nd

Engineering (aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical): Tied for 17th

Engineering (biomedical/bioengineering): Five-way tie for 12th

Engineering (civil): Four-way tie for 13th

Engineering (computer): 12th

Engineering (electrical): Three-way tie for 22nd

Engineering (industrial/manufacturing/systems): Seven-way tie for 24th

Engineering (materials engineering): Five-way tie for 25th

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Two-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics (applied math): 21st (ranked in 2024)

Nursing master’s (overall): Tied for 12th

Nurse practitioner (adult gerontology acute care): Tied for 11th

Nurse practitioner (family): Tied for 15th

School of Pharmacy (overall): Tied for 14th

Physics (overall): Tied for 20th��

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 14th

Public Affairs (social policy): Tied for 13th

Public Affairs (urban policy): Three-way tie for 21st

Public Health (health care management): Three-way tie for 16th��

Public Health (health policy and management): 11th

Public Health (social behavior): 13th

Sociology (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2025)

Sociology (population): Two-way tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (analytics): Seven-way tie for 32nd

Business (executive MBA): Three-way tie for 29th

Business (finance): Nine-way tie for 31st

Business (international MBA): Tie for 32nd

Business (production & operations): Five-way tie for 27th

Engineering (chemical): Tied for 28th

Engineering (mechanical): 34th

English: Two-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2025)

Fine arts: 15-way tie for 34th

History: Three-way tie for 31st (ranked in 2025)

Mathematics: Four-way tie for 26th

Occupational Therapy: Tied for 20th

Physical Therapy: Tied for 31st

Political science: Five-way tie for 33rd (ranked in 2025)

Cheryl Wright-Wilson and Raymond Wilson bequest supports 91��’s College of Education, School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine

Jackson Holtz — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:00:19 +0000

Cherie Wright-Wilson and Raymon Wilson have made a bequest of more than $8 million to be shared among the 91��’s College of Education, the School of Pharmacy and 91�� Medicine. Photo: Dennis Wise/91��

It all started with a slide rule.

In the fall of 1965, during Cheryl Wright’s first week at the 91��, she went to Suzzallo Library to complete a chemistry assignment. She needed help with a math problem and saw a boy across the reading room who had a slide rule — an analog calculator. The young pharmacy student who helped her that day was Raymond Wilson. Together the couple, who go by Cherie and Ray, did far more than solve a mathematical equation — they married and formed a bond that’s lasted more than six decades.

Cherie and Ray, both members of the Class of 1969,�� went on to have successful academic and professional careers.�� Over the years, their connections to the 91�� have deepened. They have supported scholarships, created alumni communities, built friendships and professional relationships, and cheered for Husky athletics, including the volleyball, basketball and football teams.

Now, the Wilsons have made a bequest of more than $8 million to be shared among the College of Education, the School of Pharmacy and 91�� Medicine’s BRaIN Laboratory. Bequests allow donors to direct their assets to causes after their death. The bequest brings the Wilsons’ total giving to more than $10 million and they now will be recognized by the 91�� as Presidential Laureates.

“This remarkable bequest reflects not only Cherie and Ray Wilson’s generosity, but a lifetime of connection to the 91��. It represents an enduring relationship grounded in gratitude, trust and a shared belief in the power of education and discovery,” said 91�� President Robert J. Jones. “From their earliest days as students to this extraordinary commitment, they have invested in people, ideas and communities across our university. Cherie and Ray’s impact will be felt for generations, expanding opportunity for students and advancing research that improves lives.”

After graduating from the 91��, both Cherie and Ray attended the University of Kansas, where Cherie earned a master’s degree in early childhood development and Ray earned his doctorate in medicinal chemistry. They both earned medical degrees from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, respectively.

Cherie and Ray wanted to return to Washington state and eventually settled near Seattle, where Cherie worked as a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s and in private practice in Bellevue. Ray set up a gastroenterology practice at the Everett Clinic. Their career success enabled them to give back to the community in several ways, including philanthropically, with several gifts supporting the 91��. For Ray, who was able to attend the 91�� thanks to scholarships, supporting students today is a way to pay it forward.

“Our giving is out of gratitude for what the University did for us,” Ray said. “It certainly helped me when I didn’t have a lot of money. It’s a privilege to try and help other students who might be struggling to get through school.”

College of Education

Ray was inspired to create an endowed scholarship fund at the College of Education more than a decade ago to support master’s level teacher training for Native Americans. It was a way to honor his high school baseball and basketball coach, Dan Iyall. Iyall, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, reached legendary status as a pioneer in Washington high school athletics.

Iyall worked for nearly 50 years in education and is a member of the Washington Baseball Hall of Fame. He created the Washington high school baseball championships and is credited with developing a new style of bunting. He coached championship-level teams from four different high schools across Eastern Washington: Coulee City, Deer Park, Oroville and University. He also took a team from Oroville to the Washington State A boys basketball championship.

Wilson said Iyall’s presence reinforced the importance of inclusivity.

“Eventually, I decided we need more people like Dan Iyall,” Wilson said. “We need more teachers like that.”

The bequest will grow the Dan Iyall Native American Support Fund by more than 300%. ��Thanks to the fund, more than a dozen Native American fellows have earned their master’s in teaching. Now, the College will be able to award more fellowships each year.

The Wilsons are also creating the Dean Mia Tuan Endowed Professorship, to recognize Tuan’s leadership and long-standing emphasis on authentic, reciprocal community partnerships and culturally informed problem solving. The new endowment will allow the College to recruit and retain faculty specializing in community- and equity-based education.

“Ray and Cherie are extraordinary people whose generosity reflects a deep commitment to strengthening our communities,” Tuan said. “Their gift will support Native students in becoming teachers while helping diversify Washington’s educator workforce. I am also deeply moved that their gift will establish an endowed professorship dedicated to authentic community partnerships and culturally grounded problem solving.”

School of Pharmacy

Several decades after Ray received financial assistance to attend the 91�� School of Pharmacy, he teamed up with classmates and launched the Class of 1969 Scholarship Fund. Set up in the 2000s, it was the first School of Pharmacy alumni class to create a fund to help students.

“I came from a small town in Eastern Washington with almost no money, and yet, the University provided me with scholarships and completely covered my tuition,” Ray said.

Wendel L. Nelson, a professor and pioneer in medicinal chemistry, recognized Ray’s talents early on and hired him to work in a lab. The research helped Ray advance his career, and the extra money helped pay for food and housing. More than that, the combination of scholarships and laboratory work enabled Ray to graduate debt-free.

With this bequest, the Wilsons’ generosity supports two additional funds in the School of Pharmacy: The Wendel L. Nelson Endowment in Medicinal Chemistry, named for Ray’s mentor, will support graduate students involved in basic laboratory research in medicinal chemistry. The gift also adds to the Nelson-Mendenhall Summer Scholars Program Fund, which brings undergraduates to the 91�� School of Pharmacy for a 10-week intensive in pharmaceutical sciences.

“From their longstanding financial support to their ongoing participation in School events, to Ray’s past volunteer leadership, Ray and Cherie have already contributed so much to our School of Pharmacy community, and they have done so with a genuine desire to help students and the School thrive,” said School of Pharmacy Dean Jay Panyam. “The Wilsons’ estate commitment is yet another example of their incredible generosity, and I know it will have a significant and lasting impact for our students.”

91�� Biorepository and Integrated Neuropathology (BRaIN) Laboratory in the 91�� School of Medicine

The Wilsons’ bequest contributes additional funds to the BRaIN Laboratory, part of 91�� Medicine’s Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology.

Researchers at the BRaIN Lab are studying normal brain anatomy and function and how these change in injury and disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy .

Cherie and Ray�� were introduced to the BRaIN Lab’s groundbreaking research by their former neighbors, Linda and Bob Dahl, whose son, Matthew Dahl, was one of their favorite neighborhood kids. When he died at 24, they were moved to learn about the BRaIN Lab, where Bob and Linda had donated his brain for research and to understand the impact of a childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI). The examination determined that Matt’s childhood TBI had evolved, rather than resolved. The outcome — Matt’s brain showed significant damage — highlighted the importance of such donations and moved the Wilsons to make meaningful philanthropic contributions to the lab.

Cherie said she’s hopeful the BRaIN Lab’s work may lead to treatments that could result in better long-term outcomes for patients.

“Some of these problems are going to be solved,” Cherie said. “Just becoming aware of chronic head injury and the effect on kids is really, really important.”

The BRaIN lab is a global leader in neurological research on many topics, including TBI. With this bequest, the Wilsons support the intersection of pharmaceutical research and brain injury and disease.

“Ray and Cherie’s engagement and generosity will continue to help the BRaIN Lab become a national model for neuropathology research. This generous gift will accelerate our work to better understand the mechanisms of brain injury and disease and to support the development of new strategies for diagnosis, treatment and prevention,” said Dr. Caitlin S. Latimer, director of both the Division of Neuropathology and the BRaIN Lab.

ArtSci Roundup: April 2026

Lauren Zondag — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:47:23 +0000

Come curious. Leave inspired.

The 91�� offers an exciting lineup of in-person and online events. From thought-provoking art and music to conversations on culture, history, and science, the 91�� community invites you to explore, learn, and connect across disciplines throughout the University.

And as April comes to a close, see what’s happening in May.��

ArtSci On Your Own Time or From Your Own Home

Video | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
From “Mourning across Centuries and Languages: A Poem’s Six-Hundred-Year Journey” with Jahan Ramazani to “What Is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter?” with Robin D. G. Kelley, the Katz Distinguished Lectures Playlist offers a rich, ever-growing archive to explore from wherever you are, inviting you to engage with a wide range of thought-provoking topics. Free.

Book Club | Chronicles from��the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka��(91�� Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! A mix of mystery and political satire, this novel takes aim at corruption in modern Nigeria. Two old friends decide to investigate a local cartel that traffics in human body parts. But in a country where religious charlatans and dishonest officials abound, can they trust anyone in their search? Free.

EXHIBITIONS CLOSING:

Through April 4 | ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)Death is a fundamental first step toward rebirth—but this transition can feel daunting without a compassionate guide. In The Book of Zero, our 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident indira allegra presents a multimedia, meditative experience shaped by their research into doula work, death care, and the cyclical nature of bodies and environments. Free.

Through April 26 | ��(Henry Art Gallery)
How might art respond when the conditions supporting artistic expression—its very ground—are under threat? Directly or more obliquely, at scales ranging from intimate to monumental, works by artists including Chakaia Booker, Denzil Hurley, Jennie C. Jones, and Stephanie Syjuco engage with the conditions that shape creative freedom. Free.

Through April 26 | (Henry Art Gallery)
we leak, we exceed activates the unique volume and multiple vantage points of the Henry’s double-height gallery, drawing together threads from physics, Black critical thought, and information theory to create an immersive environment that interrogates the spatial and social implications of compression. A common process used in data storage, spatial organization, and information systems, compression abbreviates and collapses complex ideas into more simplified forms. Kameelah Janan Rasheed questions the way compression comes at the cost of nuance and creates unrecoverable losses. She draws parallels between the compression of information and the containment of people, both physically and through the structuring and defining of identities. Through a network of video, sound, and architectural mark-making, Rasheed proposes alternatively what she calls “an embrace of Black excess and expansion” as a liberatory practice. Free.

Through May 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson’s photographs result from collaborations with strangers whom the artist encounters by chance or deliberately seeks out. The pictures often depict richly textured domestic scenes in which the details of decor, lighting, and pose are constructed. In this way, Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. Free.

Week of March 30

March 31 | ��(College of Education)
EduTalks brings together educators, researchers and community leaders to share bold ideas shaping the future of education. In just five minutes — and with a single powerful image — each presenter explores innovative approaches to today’s most pressing challenges. In the College of Education, we’re “solving for x,” taking inspiration from high school algebra to step into the complicated, often uncertain challenges in education with imagination and heart. In math, x represents the unknown. In education, it symbolizes the complex questions we face as we strive for a more just, equitable and joyful future for all learners. Solving for these challenges takes imagination, persistence and, above all, community. Free.

April 1 | (Communication)
Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues that scientists and science communicators would be well served by use of a “mental models” approach to simultaneously increase consequential knowledge and reduce public susceptibility to misconceptions about controversial climate and health findings. By engaging audiences with visual, verbal, or animated models, this approach creates understandings of science on which the audience can draw to recognize and reject consequential misconceptions. Free.

April 1�� | (School of Music)
A free lunchtime performance featuring 91�� School of Music students in the North Allen Library lobby. Presented in partnership with 91�� Libraries. Free.

April 2 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Libraries in French colonial Vietnam functioned as symbols of Western modernity and infrastructures of colonial knowledge. Yet Vietnamese readers pursued alternative uses of the library that exceeded imperial intentions. Bibliotactics examines the Hanoi and Saigon state libraries in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam, uncovering the emergence of a colonial public who reimagined the political meaning and social space of the library through public critique and day-to-day practice. Free.

April 2 | ��(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Part of Burke’s Free First Thursday series, the museum opens its collections spaces from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Visitors can explore behind‑the-scenes labs and storage, and speak with researchers, staff, and volunteers about their work.��Free.

April 2 | (Henry Art Gallery)
To celebrate the opening weekend of Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, visit the artist offsite at the Burke Artist Studio, located in the Northwest Native Art Gallery at the Burke Museum, just a few blocks from the Henry. As part of Free First Thursday at the Burke, visitors will have the chance to watch the artist at work and speak with Riege about his process. Free.

April 3 | (91�� Planetarium Arts x Colectivo Arte GUENDA)
An evening of guided gallery tours, lightning talks, and moderated panel discussions, featuring artists and scientists from Oaxaca, Seattle, Portland, 91��, and UNAM. Guided tours are offered in English and Spanish. Lightning talks and panel will be conducted in English. Free.

April 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Be among the first to experience Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́, the artist’s largest solo exhibition to date. Featuring sculpture, textiles, collage, and video, the exhibition draws on Diné cultural memory and examines the (re)production of Indigeneity. A no-host bar and music by KEXP DJ Kevin Sur round out the night. Free.

April 4 | (Henry Art Gallery)
An immersive performance by Eric-Paul Riege. Working in close concert with exhibition objects, Riege utilizes performance as a means of care and relationality among materials and objects. At once haptic and visceral, Riege will perform his self-described “weaving dances” as an extension of his world building across and within exhibitions. After the performance, Riege will be joined by co-curators, Thea Quiray Tagle and Nina Bozicnik, for an in-depth conversation about the connections among his research, practice, and performance. Free.

April 2 – 4 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Feathers will fly in this exuberant take on Swan Lake by the Australian contemporary circus group Circa. The world’s most romantic ballet is re-imagined as a circus spectacular, full of Circa’s signature physicality and shot through with cheeky humor and a thoroughly contemporary energy. Be swept away by this tale of swans and hapless princes sparkling with quirky touches like the sequined flipper-wearing duck army and a burlesque black swan. There are sumptuous aerials, jaw-dropping acrobatics and of course…feathers! Touching, funny and utterly entertaining, Duck Pond is a tale of identity and finding your true self.��

Week of April 6

Online – April 6 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Sean Jacobs, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, and Martha Saavedra, former Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 7 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Grammy-nominated documentary The Music of Strangers, which follows members of the Ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution. There will be a post-screening discussion with visionary Peter Sellars and Grammy Award-winning, multi-instrumentalist John-Carlos Perea, Chair of Ethnomusicology at 91��. Free.

April 7 | ��(Asian Languages & Literature)
Japanese-language literature has been both read and written in Brazil for more than a century, creating an ever-expanding corpus of works. The talk will introduce these literary activities, focusing on the first decades of their production. In addition to presenting the authors, newspapers, bookstores, and readers in Brazil, the talk will also raise some questions about what makes up “Japanese literature” — and all other identity-based groupings of literary texts. Free.

Online option – April 7 | Unlocking Secrets: Interrogating the Epigenome to Reveal Pregnancy Risks in Moms with High Blood Pressure with Bertha Hidalgo (Public Lectures)
Dr. Bertha Hidalgo as she explores how epigenetics is reshaping our understanding of hypertensive pregnancy disorders. This lecture highlights population-based insights, early biomarkers of risk, and transformative strategies for prevention—advancing maternal health equity and innovation in public health. Free.

April 8 | (English)
Featuring Ange Mlinko, poet, critic, editor, & professor. Book signing and reception to follow. Free.

April 8 | (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Grrrilda Beausoleil is turning 50. All she wants is a reunion with her 1990s riot grrrl band—the one she abandoned just as they were about to make it big. With a scrappy film crew documenting the journey, she navigates old wounds, new-age platitudes, and a San Francisco transformed by tech and displacement. The band must decide whether they can trust Grrrilda again—and whether their DIY roots of wheat paste, stickers, and zines can still build community in a digital age.

Dubbed “SPINAL TAP with BIPOC and queers” by the Chicago Reader, the film is a hilarious improvised mockumentary that treats comedy as activism. At its heart, the production centers LGBTQ community building across generations—reconciling past and present, passing the mic, and finding solidarity through creativity. Free.

April 8 | (School of Music)
Seattle’s contemporary music orchestra performs György Ligeti’s piano concerto, featuring faculty pianist and SMO member Cristina Valdés, alongside new works for sinfonietta by faculty composers William Dougherty, Joël-François Durand, and Huck Hodge. SMO is joined onstage by select graduate-student members of the 91�� Modern Music Ensemble in this large-ensemble format.

April 10 | ��(Digital Arts & Experimental Media)
Anomalous Textualities re-imagines the Studio Theater as a traversable showroom. Inhabited by seven distinct works, the margins of language and meaning are re-mediated, embodied, and deconstructed through human-machine (mis)translations. In this performance-installation, spatial, temporal, and linguistic boundaries are blurred, giving way to slippages across models, bodies, and forms. Within this anomalous showroom, language models drive mechanical systems, glitching oracles, and choreographic prompts. Two further works explore non-verbal communication, seeking a physical vocabulary for a world shared with a “technological other.”

In this complex system, there is no fixed sequence. Light and sound are the conductors. As illumination fades in and out across the grid, models are sporadically activated. The audience is invited to navigate the showroom and explore multiple perspectives, moving through the partitions to witness interactions up close, or observing the entire system from the margins as it breathes and stutters as a single organism. Free.

April 10 | Sand Point Open Studios (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Visit the private studios of the Painting + Drawing MFA students and Division of Art faculty at the School’s Sand Point facilities. We will also be celebrating the opening of Rebecca Shippee’s show in the Sand Point Gallery. Students, alumni and the general public are invited for an evening of conversation, interaction, and art. Free.

April 10 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
What does democracy look like from below? This talk will look at how ordinary lives are reshaped by surveillance, majoritarianism, and corporate-political nexus in South Asia. Exploring media influence, gendered surveillance, majoritarian and casteist politics, the struggles of urban poor workers and the slow erosion of democratic rights in contemporary South Asia through Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X, this talk explores how journalism can recover erased histories, expose routine violence, and hold power to account. Free.

Week of April 13

Online – April 13 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Mary V. Harvey, Chief Executive at the Center for Sport and Human Rights; Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, Board Member of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee, Chief Business Officer of Seattle Reign Football Club, and Chief Operating Officer of Seattle Sounders Football Club; Leo Flor, Chief Legacy Officer of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee; and Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the 91�� School of Law. Free.

April 13 | (School of Music)
Faculty soprano Carrie Shaw’s new Seattle-based group Wind Up Vocal Project performs musical puzzles of the past and present, including Ming Tsao’s “DAS WASSERGEWORDENE KANONBUCH.”

April 13 | (School of Music)
The School of Music keyboard program presents a solo piano recital by Spencer Myer, associate professor of music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, performing works by Haydn, Ravel, Liszt, and Carl Vine. Free.

April 14 | ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)
Our question to consider: We are all in this together, so, how do we actually do this work together? This year-long program series hopes to honor our commitment to social justice and to gather our community to think about the work of liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, conversation, and workshops. Unlike your traditional book club, all the reading and study happen together, so no need to prepare. Join us monthly as we approach the topic of liberation from a number of perspectives. Free.

April 14 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Tiffany Tsao will discuss the challenges of translating Indonesian literature in the context of a publishing industry that has tended to value Indonesian works more for their “Indonesianness” than their literary value. Catering to a readership interested specifically in the history, culture, and living conditions of Indonesia has some near-term benefits, but does this approach do Indonesian writing a disservice over the long term? She will discuss, more specifically, how this state of affairs has shaped the decisions she has made as a translator – from the works she has chosen to translate, to her approach to the translation process itself. Free.

April 16 | (School of Music)
Faculty percussionist Bonnie Whiting celebrates the release of Through the Eye(s), her new CD out now on Neuma Records. Documenting a cycle of pieces for solo speaking and singing percussionist developed in collaboration with nine incarcerated people at the Indiana Women’s Prison, Through the Eye(s) is a collaboration with composer Eliza Brown, who facilitated the project. The program includes a short performance followed by a question-and-answer session. Free.

April 16 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Join The Black Embodiments Studio for The (Printed) Matter of Black Arts Writing: Archives for the Future, a panel discussion on the practice of collecting, preserving, and circulating Black arts writing ephemera. Featuring archivists and publishers of printed matter like flyers, zines, pamphlets, notebooks, and books, the program explores the significance of gathering around materials that are fragile and prone to disappearance—and reflects on what contemporary practices of preserving and circulating Black arts writing ephemera can tell us about the futures of the art world in general. This is the second of two programs for Public Scholarship + Practice: Black Futures + Archives, a new series highlighting 91��-led research and practice at the intersections of visual art and culture. Free.

April 16 – 18 | (Drama)
The IGNITE New Works Festival is a three-day event celebrating 91�� student “ART” of all forms, including performance art, theatre, film, installation, multimedia, and sculpture. The festival’s goal is to ignite expression, community, accessibility, and belonging among 91�� students by showcasing art that is FRESH, RISKY, and ODD. Performances will be held in the Glenn Hughes Penthouse (GH Penthouse) or Hutchinson Hall (HUT). Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Ana Alonso Minutti, associate professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of New Mexico, presents “Noising the Desert: Land and Memory in Raven Chacon’s Work.” Composer and installation artist Raven Chacon (Fort Defiance, 1977) has developed a body of work shaped by the sonic landscapes of the New Mexican desert. This presentation traces how his engagement with noise amplifies place and activates personal and cultural memory, positioning noising as a borderlands practice that unsettles colonial histories. Free.

April 17 | (School of Music)
Seattle orchestra Harmonia (William White, conductor) performs concerto excerpts with 91�� piano students. Kane Chang, Jiaxuan Wu, Eli Antony, and Yuchen Qi.

April 17 | (Political Science)
Presentation by Tongtian Xiao, Ph.D. Student, 91�� as a part of the Severyns Ravenholt Seminar in Comparative Politics. Free.

Online option – April 17 | (Classics)
Linda Gosner (Texas Tech) examines mining and its effects on the communities and ecologies of southeast Iberia following the conquest of this region during the Second Punic War. This region also had botanical and marine resources, long exploited by local communities, who reacted to Roman mining in divergent ways. Weavers of local grasses shifted their production strategies, supplying equipment for Roman mining. By contrast, harvesters of a large mollusk species, who once collaborated closely with miners, broke ties with the industry. Ultimately, the talk shows the important role local decision-making played in organizing production and in the empire’s experience in Roman Iberia. Free.

April 18 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Hailed as the “global ambassador of Spanish guitar” by Billboard Magazine, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas is widely acclaimed as the successor to Andrés Segovia. His playing dazzles with vibrant colors and deep emotion, captivating audiences with its expressiveness. Sáinz-Villegas’ guitar evokes intimacy and passion, weaving haunting melodies that transport listeners to a place of reverie and reflection. An exceptional performer, he stands as a living testament to music’s profound power to touch the depths of the human soul.

Week of April 20

Online – April 20 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by César Wazen, Director of the International Affairs Office at Qatar University. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 21 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Focusing on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s public displays of crying, this talk examines what these moments signify, and why his supporters interpret them as authentic, drawing on insights from focus group discussions. It situates these performances within Erdoğan’s increased reliance on populist discourse and style, arguing that these emotional and performative dynamics have been central to mobilizing support and maintaining the cohesion of his constituency. In doing so, the talk shows how such strategies have contributed to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime sustained by popular backing, particularly in moments when legitimacy is under strain. Free.

April 22 | ��(Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is currently sold out. Tickets may become available as some tickets get returned closer to the performance. A waitlist will open at the Meany Box Office starting at 6:30 p.m. on April 22. This special performance from Yo-Yo Ma pairs repertoire from the center of his musical firmament with reflections on how it has shaped his thinking about art, human nature and our search for meaning.

April 22 | (Communication)
Drawing on his research in media, technology, and public life, USC Associate Professor Mike Ananny examines how this framing shapes public understanding, limits accountability, and influences how societies respond to emerging technologies. The talk invites audiences to think more critically about what generative AI is, how it operates, and why treating it as a public problem is essential for addressing its broader social and political impacts. Free.

April 23 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Deana Lawson draws on the legacies of historical portraiture, documentary photography, and the family album, but transcends these traditions, constructing images that merge lived experience with imagined narratives. The aesthetics of intergenerational connectivity guide Lawson’s choice of subject matter, with each of her works taking its place in an overarching project that coheres into what she terms “an ever-expanding mythological extended family.” Lawson’s works also demonstrate a special attention to the element of light, as both part of the mechanical process by which photographs are realized, and as a manifestation of the divinity that suffuses her sitters. A focused presentation of Lawson’s work on the Henry’s mezzanine features photographs that highlight her ongoing exploration of female subjectivity through the photographic image. Free.

April 24 | (German)
German Studies Chair, Ellwood Wiggins, and Professor Andre Schütze present and discuss the enduring legacy of Faust.��Discover what to look out for in Murnau’s revolutionary cinematic masterpiece and learn about the Faust story as a parable of modernity–and of German history–in its adaptations across the ages. What is the price of your soul? Following the discussion, please stick around as the community—students, alumni, faculty, and staff—gather over refreshments to celebrate German Studies’ own 21st Century learning. Free.

April 24 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for more than 150 million years — evolving into spectacular giants like Brontosaurus and T. rex, which captivate our imaginations. In this talk, University of Edinburgh professor and paleontologist Steve Brusatte will discuss the complete story of where dinosaurs came from, how they rose to dominance, how most of them went extinct when a giant asteroid hit, and how some of them live on as today’s birds. In doing so, he will recount stories of digging up dinosaurs and working with colleagues around the world. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 300,000 years and we are already talking about planetary extinction, dinosaurs are a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures that ruled Earth before us. Free.

April 24-25 | Improvised Music Project Festival (IMPFEST): / (School of Music)
The School of Music and the student-run Improvised Music Project (IMP) present IMPFest, featuring 91�� Jazz Studies students and faculty performing with guest artists of international renown. Headliners for this year’s festival are Grammy-nominated drummer, producer, and emcee Kassa Overall and Icelandic composer and bass guitarist Skùli Sverisson.

April 24-25 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Seamlessly blending illusion, acrobatics, magic and whimsy, MOMIX sends audiences flying down the rabbit hole in Moses Pendleton’s ALICE, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland. Join this dazzling company on a mind-bending adventure, as Alice encounters time-honored characters including the undulating Caterpillar, a lobster quadrille, frenzied White Rabbits, a mad Queen of Hearts and a variety of other surprises.

April 26 |��(91�� Alumni)
Join the 91��AA and BECU for a day of service to help fight food insecurity. Free.

April 26 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Dig into paleontology at the Burke’s annual festival of fossils!
Celebrate all things fossilized with hands-on activities for all ages! View hundreds of specimens from the Burke’s collection and hear about groundbreaking research from Burke and 91�� scientists.

Fossil fun for everyone!
Watch paleontologists uncover a duck-billed dinosaur in the Fossil Prep Lab.
Learn about the fossils of Sucia Island, including the one and only dinosaur bone found in Washington state!
Chat with Burke paleontologists and students about fossils from the Burke’s extensive vertebrate, invertebrate, and paleobotany collections.
Check out the amazing T. rex skull unearthed by Burke scientists.
And more!

Week of April 27

Online – April 27 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Niki Akhavan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America. The World (Cup) Comes To Seattle 2026 Lecture Series is an online series of talks and discussions hosted by the Global Sport Lab, featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Each week, Global Sport Lab will bring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. Lectures will focus on teams coming to Seattle, as well as topics such as workers’ rights, World Cup histories, immigration and travel bans, the Pride Match controversy, and more. Free.

April 28 | ��(School of Music)
Students of Dr. Stephen Price present a 91�� Organ studio spring recital. Dr. Price teaches Organ performance, Church music, and Keyboard Harmony courses. In addition, he leads ongoing initiatives to develop and revitalize the 91�� program, continuing the legacy of his predecessor, Dr. Carole Terry. Free.

April 28 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Celebrate the graduating seniors across the art programs: 3D4M, Photo/Media, Painting + Drawing, and Interdisciplinary Visual Art (IVA) during the 2026 BA in Art Graduation Exhibitions at the Jacob Lawrance Gallery. Ways of Becoming is split into three shows between April 28 – June 5, 2026. Free.

April 28 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Stephanie LeMenager, Professor of English and Environmental Studies, considers the role of fiction as a form of resistant truth-telling in an era of lies, bullish*t, propaganda, GenAI fakes, and conspiracy theory, and in the shadow of the climate crisis. In our media atmosphere filled with falsehoods, fiction becomes a means of capturing messy realities unassimilable to propaganda. Moreover, the flexibility of fictional imagination allows for social responses to radical uncertainties, via new genres of storytelling that call climate-change publics into being. In this talk, we’ll consider stories of megafire. Free.

April 29 | (Philosophy)
The idea of space as the stage on which physical events play out dates at least as far back as the 5th century BC. The twentieth century saw a shift from theorising about space and time separately to thinking about spacetime, but the metaphor of spacetime as a stage or arena has continued. Twenty-first century physics looks likely to render this untenable – theories of quantum gravity do not appear to postulate spacetime as a fundamental container for physical contents. This talk examines an alternative way of thinking about spacetime based on the role that it plays in our physical theories – spacetime philosophy should focus on what spacetime does, rather than what it is. Free.

April 29 | (Psychology)
Presented by Maureen Craig, Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University. Free.

April 30 | (School of Music)
The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Erin Bodnar, director) presents “Scenes and Portraits,” featuring music by Gustav Holst, Martin Ellerby, and others.

April 30 |(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
What does it mean to live well as wildfire and smoke season becomes more a part of life in the Pacific Northwest and many other places around the world? As much as we focus on preparedness and reducing materials that fuel wildfires, we must also reckon with the human dimensions of fire, which shape how we interact with it. “Fire Humanities” is a book project and an emerging field of study that draws on the humanities and arts to center stories, representations, collaborations, and values that promote adaptation, resilience, and justice as we adapt to a world with more fire.

This program will feature a panel discussion with five contributors to the book, who will share their approaches to this emerging field of research. After the panel, you’ll be invited to share your stories of fire and smoke with each other, speak with the panelists, and participate in hands-on activities connected to the Fire Humanities project. Free.

April 30 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Panel discussion featuring Wang Feng, University of California, Irvine, and Yong Cai, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with 91�� faculty James Lin and Sara Curran. Free.

May 1 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Writing history entails good editing—and accepting when material can’t make the final cut. Lengthy research projects require a command of sources but also analytical flexibility. Such flexibility can ensure rigor, sometimes at the expense of findings that, alas, must be shelved for some other future use. “The B-Sides of Unmaking Botany” will examine a set of sources that did not make it into the recently published monograph Unmaking Botany: Science and Vernacular in the Colonial Philippines (Duke University Press, 2025). The objectives of the talk are thus twofold: to provide a behind-the-scenes take on the production of a scholarly monograph and to offer a conceptual argument gleaned from the sources that nonetheless resonates with some of Unmaking Botany’s principal interventions. Free.

May 1-2 | (American Indian Studies)
Indigenous scholars, artists, community leaders, and practitioners come together to reflect on food sovereignty, wellness, cultural resurgence, and collective healing through land-based knowledge and practice. Keynote by Vina Brown (Haíɫzaqv and Nuu-chah-nulth), a scholar, artist, and wellness advocate, whose work centers on Indigenous law, cultural healing, and community well-being. Raised in her Haíɫzaqv homelands, Vina’s work is deeply grounded in cultural resurgence, ceremony, and Tribal Canoe Journeys. She is the founder of Copper Canoe Woman and co-founder of Rooted Resiliency, an Indigenous women-led nonprofit dedicated to community wellness, cultural healing, and reclamation. Across her work, Vina advocates for land, culture, and collective well-being, with particular attention to healing intergenerational and historical trauma through community, movement, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Free.

See all that’s to come in the May ArtSci Roundup.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the 91��—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Previously shared on a quarterly basis, those who sign up for the Roundup email will receive them monthly, delivering timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Make sure to check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).uw.edu).

ArtSci Roundup: March 2026

Lauren Zondag — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 22:13:36 +0000

Come curious. Leave inspired.

ArtSci On Your Own Time

Exhibition | ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)
Death is a fundamental first step toward rebirth—but this transition can feel daunting without a compassionate guide. In The Book of Zero, our 2026 Jacob Lawrence Legacy Resident indira allegra presents a multimedia, meditative experience shaped by their research into doula work, death care, and the cyclical nature of bodies and environments. Free.

Recorded Lectures | ��(History)
Incarceration is a hotly debated topic in the United States, a country that has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Looking at the practice from a historical perspective, what can incarceration teach us about who we were and who we are now? What might histories of incarceration, and the histories of those who have been incarcerated, tell us about power dynamics, belonging, exclusion, struggle, and hope across societies in the past and present? The 2026 History Lecture Series explores the practice of incarceration, tracing its change over time from antiquity to our modern world. Recordings are available online. Free.

by Geena Powa Haiyupis

Recorded Lectures | ��(American Indian Studies)
People come together to share knowledge on topics such as traditional foods, plants and medicines; environmental and food justice; food sovereignty/security; health and wellness; and treaty rights. Indigenous peoples in the Northwest have maintained a sustainable way of life through a cultural, spiritual, and reciprocal relationship with their environment. This symposium serves to foster dialogue and build collaborative networks as we, Native peoples, strive to sustain our cultural food practices and preserve our healthy relationships to the land, water, and all living things. Save the date:

Book Club | Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka��(91�� Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! A mix of mystery and political satire, this novel takes aim at corruption in modern Nigeria. Two old friends decide to investigate a local cartel that traffics in human body parts. But in a country where religious charlatans and dishonest officials abound, can they trust anyone in their search? Free.

Week of March 2

Photo by Michael B Maine

February 26 – March 1 | (Dance)
Presenting seven original student-choreographed works. This platform gives students the opportunity to express their creative voices through choreography and costume design, as well as collaborating with lighting designers and mentors.

March 2 | (School of Music)
The Campus Band (Solomon Encina, conductor) and Concert Band (Yuman Wu, conductor) present their Winter Quarter concert, performing music by Julie Giroux, John Philip Sousa, Percy Grainger, Johan de Meij, Frank Ticheli, Aaron Perrine, and others.

Online – March 2 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by Kelly McGannon, current World Affairs Council Fellow, and Jeff Hovenier, U.S. Ambassador (ret.). Trump in the World 2.0 is an online series of talks and discussions featuring guest speakers and faculty exploring global perspectives on a second Trump administration. Free.

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March 3 | (School of Music)
Winter Quarter Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist Ramón Gutierrez hails from Xalapa, Veracruz in Mexico and specializes in playing the requinto (a small melodic guitar). He is the leader of the group Son de Madera, and has performed and recorded with musicians in other traditions, including the Chicano rock band Quetzal from Los Angeles and Antonio Corona, a performer of early music in Mexico. In this concert concluding his 91�� residency, he performs music from the Son Jarocho tradition with his 91�� students and special guests. Free.

March 3 | (School of Music)
The 91�� Chamber Singers and University Chorale collaborate with Seattle University Choirs (Leann Conley-Holcom, director) in performing Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard, a profound tale of discrimination, cruelty, death, yet with themes of hope.

Online option – March 4 |��Primary: Alma Thomas, Sisterhood, and the Revolutionary Quality of Light (Public Lectures)
Based on Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ forthcoming book of poetic indexes, this interactive poetic lecture explores the life, teaching, and artwork of color theorist Alma Thomas. Engaging themes of audience, intimacy, abstract expressionist art, and the dynamic relationship between Black women’s creativity and the process of being Earth, the lecture invites participants into a rhythmic dialogue of form, meaning, and presence. Free.

March 5 | ��(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Part of Burke’s Free First Thursday series, the museum opens its collections spaces from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Visitors can explore behind‑the-scenes labs and storage, and speak with researchers, staff, and volunteers about their work.��Free.

Online – March 6 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
Raising The Black Star presents a historical restoration of Kwame Nkrumah’s contributions to the Pan-African movement, as well as the transnational nature of post-colonial Ghana’s nation-building process. Dr. McLeod’s richly-textured narrative highlights the startling and continued relevance of Pan-Africanism in both historical and contemporary discussions of transnational solidarities and visions of a completely liberated African continent. Free.

March 6 | (School of Music)
91�� Opera Workshop presents Melissa Dunphy’s 2023 opera Alice Tierney. With stage direction by Kelly Kitchens; music direction by Andrew Romanick. Commissioned by the Oberlin Opera Commissioning Program through the generosity of Elizabeth and Justus ’71 Schlichting, Melissa Dunphy’s opera Alice Tierney was premiered at Oberlin Conservatory in 2023, and at Opera Columbus in April 2023. Dunphy was one of seven winners of a 2020 OPERA America Discovery Grant, presented to female composers with the intention of increasing gender parity across the opera industry. That grant supported the development of Alice Tierney at Oberlin.

Online – March 6 | Palestine to Iraq with Adam Hanieh (Public Lectures)
Explore how World War I reshaped the Middle East. This lecture traces anti-colonial movements, Palestine’s pivotal role, and the shift from British to American power—linking regional upheaval to the global rise of fossil capitalism and reimagined imperial hierarchies. Free.

March 6 | (Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies)
Over the past five centuries, empires have used partition and division to justify and advance colonialism. We can see that the ongoing history of colonial rule and racial violence is exploding around the world today—from Palestine to Minnesota and beyond. Scholars and activists gather to discuss anticolonial struggles, past and present. Free.

March 7 | (School of Music)
Emerging and established composers explore unconventional sonic landscapes in this concert of music by students, faculty, alumni, and guests of the 91�� Composition program. Free.

Week of March 9

Online – March 9 | ��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Presented by David Bachman, 91�� Professor, International Studies; James Lin, 91�� Associate Professor, International Studies and Taiwan historian; Tabitha Grace Mallory, Founder and CEO, China Ocean Institute; and Susan H. Whiting, 91�� Professor, Political Science. Trump in the World 2.0 is an online series of talks and discussions featuring guest speakers and faculty exploring global perspectives on a second Trump administration. Free.

March 10 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
This year-long program series hopes to honor our commitment to social justice and to gather our community to think about the work of liberation through shared texts, art, film, music, conversation, and workshops. Unlike your traditional book club all the reading and study happens together, so no need to prepare. Join us monthly as we approach the topic of liberation from a number of perspectives. Free.

March 10 | (School of Music)
Students of John Popham present a chamber music showcase. Free.

March 10 | (School of Music)
The Modern Music Ensemble (Cristina Valdés, director) performs music by John Cage, Hilda Paredes, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Salvatore Sciarrino.

March 10 | (Stroum Center for Jewish Studies)
The short fiction collected in In the Shadow of the Holocaust, translated by Senderovich and Harriet Murav, recovers a range of compelling voices that had been scarcely known or translated, with particular emphasis on the work of women writers. Jewish authors from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Belarus—some writing in Yiddish and others in Russian—tell stories of ordinary people living on after the massive devastation of the Holocaust on Soviet territory, depicting memory, conflict, love, and loss. Writers in this collection offer especially powerful perspectives on survival in the aftermath of genocide. These are not stories only about how people died, but about how they continued to live and make meaning. Free.

March 12 | (Communication)

Veteran reporter and editor Miranda Spivack discusses her new book, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities—and the Local Heroes Fighting Back (The New Press, May 6, 2025). In her book, Spivack shines a light on corruption close to home—uncovering how local governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors sometimes fail the very communities they serve. Through five eye-opening U.S. case studies, she introduces “accidental activists”—ordinary citizens who demanded answers when government officials failed to protect them. From car crashes and unsafe drinking water to faulty safety equipment, Spivack’s investigative reporting reveals the hidden deals, lies, and cover-ups that often keep communities in the dark—and celebrates the local heroes who stand up for accountability and transparency.

March 12 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities)
Tonia Sutherland examines the consequences of digitally raising the dead. Attending to the violent deaths of Black Americans–and the records that document them–from slavery through the present, Sutherland explores media evidence, digital acts of remembering, and the rights and desires of humans to be forgotten. Free.

March 12 | (School of Music)
The Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band (Erin Bodnar, director) presents��Mystic Threads,��featuring music by Victoriano Valencia, Jodie Blackshaw, Reena Esmail, Florent Schmitt, Luigi Zaninelli, and others. With guest composer Simon Alami.

March 12 – 21 | (School of Drama)
For most of Sorrel’s high school career, she was friendless and quietly weird. She didn’t even seem to fit in with the geeky kids. When she turned seventeen, and late puberty produced a supermodel physique, she became seen as a “hot dork”. Bunny spans twenty years of Sorrel’s life. Unencumbered by the burden of shame, she journeys through the complex social expectations surrounding female sexuality. MFA student Ren Langer directs this intimate and thought-provoking play.

March 13 | (School of Music)
David Alexander Rahbee leads the 91�� Symphony in a program of music by Mieczyslaw Karlowicz and Sergei Prokofiev. Faculty violinist Rachel Lee Priday is featured soloist with the orchestra for Karlowicz’s Violin Concerto in A major, op. 8.

March 14 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Grammy-nominated violinist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird joins acclaimed jazz drummer and 91�� Professor Ted Poor for a night of genre-defying music. Blending elements of folk, jazz, classical and indie rock, their sound is adventurous and soulful. Bird’s signature whistling, looping and lyrical finesse meet Poor’s expressive, boundary-pushing rhythms.

Week of March 16

March 12 – March 21 | (School of Drama)
For most of Sorrel’s high school career, she was friendless and quietly weird. She didn’t even seem to fit in with the geeky kids. When she turned seventeen, and late puberty produced a supermodel physique, she became seen as a “hot dork”. Bunny spans twenty years of Sorrel’s life. Unencumbered by the burden of shame, she journeys through the complex social expectations surrounding female sexuality. MFA student, Ren, directs this intimate and thought-provoking play.

March 16 | (Chemistry)
Hemamala (Hema) Karunadasa is the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, by courtesy, at Stanford University. She is a Faculty Scientist at the SLAC National Lab and a Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy. She received her A.B. from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from UC Berkeley, with postdoctoral training at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and at the California Institute of Technology. Her group uses solution-state methods for the self-assembly of solid-state materials, with an emphasis on halide perovskites and their derivatives. Her recent awards include the Brown Science Foundation Investigator award (2022) and the American Chemical Society Harry Gray award (2020) and the Inorganic Lectureship (2022). She is an Associate Editor for��Chemical Science (Royal Chemical Society).��Free.

March 16 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
What can one neighborhood reveal about the making of a modern nation? This talk deciphers the unexpected significance of Xita, a half-square-mile quarter in Shenyang, in Northeast China. It shows that over nearly four centuries, Xita has been shaped and reshaped by empire, war, migration, and urban transformation. The history of this small area mirrors large-scale changes, including and especially China’s metamorphosis from a multi-ethnic Eurasian empire to a postindustrial society. By studying how global and local forces play out in everyday spaces, the talk reveals a perspective for understanding China’s past—not from the top down, but through the streets and people who lived it. Free.

March 18 | (Psychology)
This lecture is made possible in part by a generous endowment from Professor Allen L. Edwards. The event will conclude with a Q&A session followed by a reception. Hosted by Sheri Mizumori. Free.

March 19 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Known for his phenomenal technique and ravishing tone, German virtuoso Augustin Hadelich is one of the most celebrated violinists of our time. His musical partner, the Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi, performs with sensitivity and poetry combined with power and brilliance. Together, they embark on an evening of mostly French music, from Rameau and Poulenc to Franck, Debussy and Kurtág.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the 91��—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).uw.edu).

91�� Information School ties for 1st; other 91�� programs place highly in US News & World Report Best Graduate Schools ranking

Jackson Holtz — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 04:06:29 +0000

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools rankings. Photo: 91��

UPDATE April 8,2025: An earlier version of this story included outdated rankings that were erroneously posted by U.S. News and have since been removed from the U.S. News ranking site. This story has been updated to reflect most recent rankings.

Many of the 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to .

The 91�� Information School tied for No. 1 alongside the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for library and information studies. And, more than 80 91�� schools and departments placed prominently in the 2026 rankings.

“As these rankings demonstrate, the 91��’s outstanding graduate and professional degree programs are leading the way in training highly skilled people to fill critical workforce needs and advance discovery and innovation in a wide range of fields,” said 91�� President Ana Mari Cauce. “It has never been more important to recognize how much graduate and professional education benefit our nation and people everywhere, and the 91�� is proud to see these exceptional programs be celebrated.”

Excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, 32 91�� programs placed in the top 10, and more than 80 are in the top 35.

In new rankings released this year, the 91�� placed in the top 10 nationwide in library and information studies, public affairs, nursing, speech and language pathology, education, public health, computer science, psychology and civil engineering, according to U.S. News.

The 91��’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and placed seventh in the nation. The Evans School’s environmental policy program was ranked second and nonprofit management and social policy each were ranked at No. 8.

This year’s rankings highlighted 91��’s leadership in nursing and public health: The 91�� School of Nursing held the No. 1 overall ranking for a public school offering a doctor of nursing practice program, and nursing schools at 91�� Bothell and 91�� Tacoma are among the top 10 public institutions that offer a master’s degree. The School of Public Health has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade, coming in this year tied for No. 10. The school also had three programs in the top 10: biostatistics, environmental health sciences and epidemiology. And overall, the U.S. News rankings noted 91��’s strength in health sciences: The School of Social Work was ranked No. 7 and the School of Pharmacy tied for 12th — or third among public institutions on the West Coast — on last year’s list, while dentistry programs are not ranked.

The 91��’s programs in speech and language pathology tied for No. 5, topping schools on the West Coast.�� Three programs from the College of Education placed in the top 10. And the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering this year tied for seventh place overall, and four programs ranked in the top 10, including artificial intelligence, programming language, systems and theory.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. relies on both expert opinions and statistical indicators.

TOP 10:

Library and Information Studies (overall): Two-way tie for 1st

Public Affairs (environmental policy): 2nd

Library and information studies (digital librarianship): Two-way for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): 3rd

Physics (nuclear): Two-way tie for 3rd (ranked in 2024)

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Two-way for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Nursing (midwifery): 5th

Nurse practitioner (pediatric acute care): Two-way tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Speech-language pathology: Six-way tie for 5th

Education (elementary education): 6th

Education (secondary education): 6th

Public Health (biostatistics): 6th

Computer science (overall): Four-way tie for 7th

Computer science (programming language): 7th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 7th

School of Social Work (overall): 7th (ranked in 2025)

Statistics: Tie for 7th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 8th

Computer science (systems): 8th

Education (curriculum/instruction): 8th

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): Two-way tie for 7th

Psychology (clinical): Six-way tie for 8th

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 8th

Public Affairs (social policy): 8th

Public Health (epidemiology): Two-way tie for 8th

Computer science (theory): Three-way tie for 9th

Earth sciences: Five-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Engineering (civil): Three-way tie for 10th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 10th

School of Public Health (overall): Two-way tie for 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Three-way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Business (part-time MBA): Two-way tie for 17th

Business (information systems): Two-way tie for 12th

Business (international MBA): Three-way tie for 20th

Business (supply chain management): Three-way tie for 21st (ranked in 2025)

Business (full-time MBA): Two-way tie for 22nd

Business (entrepreneurship): Three-way tie for 23rd

Business (executive MBA): Three-way tie for 25th

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry: Three-way tie for 24th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2024)

College of Education (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd

Education (administration): Two-way tie for 12th

Education (policy): Three-way tie for 16th

Education (psychology): 19th

Education (special education): Two-way tie for 11th

College of Engineering (overall): Three-way tie for 20th

Engineering (aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical): Three-way tie for 15th

Engineering (biomedical/bioengineering): Four-way tie for 12th

Engineering (chemical): Two-way tie for 25th

Engineering (computer): Two-way tie for 13th

Engineering (electrical): Four-way tie for 18th

Engineering (environmental/environmental health): Four-way tie for 18th (ranked in 2025)

Engineering (materials engineering): Three-way tie for 24th

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Two-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics (applied math): 21st (ranked in 2024)

Nursing master’s (overall): Three-way tie for 12th

Nurse practitioner (family): Three-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2025)

College of Pharmacy (overall): Three-way tie for 12th (ranked in 2025)

Physics (overall): 20th (ranked in 2024)

Public Health (healthcare management): Three-way tie for 16th

Public Health (health policy and management): 13th

Public Health (social behavior): Two-way tie for 12th

Public Affairs (global policy and administration): 14th

Public Affairs (public management and leadership): Three-way tie for 11th

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 13th

Sociology (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd

Sociology (population): Two-way tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (accounting): Three-way tie for 27th

Business (management): Three-way tie for 29th

Business (finance): Three-way tie for 31st

Business (marketing): Two-way tie for 32nd

Engineering (industrial/manufacturing/systems): Three-way tie for 30th

Engineering (mechanical): Three-way tie for 30th

English: Two-way tie for 34th

History: Three-way tie for 31st

Mathematics: Three-way tie for 27th (ranked in 2024)

Political science: Five-way tie for 33rd

Psychology: Nine-way way tie for 30th

Q&A: How 12 91�� researchers fell in love with their research

Sarah McQuate — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:27:34 +0000

For Valentine’s Day, 91�� News asked 12 91�� researchers to share their love stories: What made them decide to pursue their career paths? Scroll down or click on the links below to see their responses.

Lakeya Afolalu Photo: 91��

, Assistant professor of language, literacy and culture, College of Education

What do you study at the 91��?��

My research explores how immigration, race, language, literacy and identity intersect in the lives of Nigerian immigrant and transnational youth. Unlike in many West African countries, race is the most salient identifier in the United States, often overlooking the diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities of youth of African origin. This often affects how immigrant youth make sense of their identities in this country. My research examines how Nigerian youth use multilingualism, literacy and digital literacies to construct and negotiate their identities across home, school and digital environments in the U.S.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

My mother is African American. My father is Nigerian. So, growing up, I often felt like I was split between both cultures. There were also so many societal and familial expectations about what it meant to be “Black,” “African American” and “Nigerian.”

Growing up, my family members and friends in Detroit called me by my African American name, “Lakeya.” But when my sisters and I spent summers and holidays in Queens, New York, with our Nigerian family, the moment I crossed over the threshold of the door I was called by my Nigerian name, “Iyore.”

Honestly, I’d say I set out very early in life to define my life’s path and to be intentional about how I wanted to make myself known to the world — my identity. It was not — and even as an adult Black woman in America, it still is not always — comfortable to defy identity expectations. But what other way is there to live? To be a shell of what others, or society, believe we should be? Is that living? It is not.

As a teenager, I had less confidence in being bold and being my true self. I loved reading novels. I’d go to the bookstore and buy books to read, but I hid this practice from my friends because of some unwritten rule that one can’t be Black, cool and smart. Adolescent peer pressure was a real issue. That’s also how I fell in love with writing. Often feeling misunderstood, I resorted to the pages of my journals where I could be myself and dream of my future self. I continue to keep a journal.

My Aunt Darcelle says I’ve been asking profound questions since I learned to speak. That hasn’t changed. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve committed to a career in research. My research is not just research, though. It’s the story and lives of so many young people who feel wedged between other people’s and society’s ideas of who they should be and what they should become. Sometimes, these expectations can come from those closest to us who have well-meaning intentions — parents, family members, close friends. I understand this feeling well.

There are many times when I’m writing a manuscript or analyzing data, and I draw on memories of my own schooling experiences to interpret interview transcripts from the Nigerian youth in my study. Or I remember similar instances from West African seventh-grade students in Harlem, which guided me to draw on theoretical frames that align best with the Nigerian youth experience.

My research is truly about shifting the narrative about what it means to be Black, Nigerian and African. Why? Well, because Blackness is so rich, diverse and multifaceted. So is Nigerianness and Africanness. As I engage in my research to illustrate the rich diversity of Nigerian youth’s languages, literacies and identities, I also aim to contribute to dismantling rigid identity structures, creating greater freedom for all young people who find themselves in environments that are structured by prescribed identities that conflict with how they desire to be known.

My research is a contribution to freedom — a freedom that transcends into adulthood. My feet may be in the academy, but my heart and hands always have been and always will be in the communities that mirror mine. It’s truly an honor to do this heart work.

Afolalu (right, in purple) with her two sisters and one cousin visiting their grandmother’s house on Detroit’s west side. This picture was taken by the girls’ Uncle Keith, who was visiting from Atlanta, and who had called the girls inside so he could take a picture of them. Photo: Lakeya Afolalu/91��

I also want to touch on how I decided to pursue this career path. Growing up, I always wanted to play school and take on the role of the teacher. In fact, I cried whenever my sisters and cousins wouldn’t play school with me. For Christmas and my birthday, I would ask my mother to buy me dry-erase boards, markers and other office items so that I could set up my “classroom” in the house.

I fell in love with teaching because my early elementary teachers were some of the first people who made me feel seen. For instance, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Schave, would let me choose and read books to the whole class on Fridays. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Korn, at Fitzgerald Elementary on the west side of Detroit, would invite me to the writer’s table in the classroom whenever I finished my work early. At that table, I realized how powerful and freeing the art of writing is.

While I had these great school experiences, they were also starkly different from my cousins’ experiences. They lived and attended public schools in Auburn Hills, in the suburbs outside of Detroit. I often visited them on the weekends and noticed that they read the same books that I read at my elementary school, except that we had the abridged version in basal textbooks while they had the full chapter books. That struck something within me, and I realized very early in life that your ZIP code — where you lived — determined the quality of your education. It felt unfair. I didn’t have the words to describe it then, but I now know that it was an equity issue — not just educationally but also in terms of economic and social mobility.

So, I decided around the age of 7 that I wanted to become a teacher. I made an internal promise to myself, a commitment, that children who grow up in communities like mine — the beautiful west side of Detroit — would have access to a quality education no matter what. Since that commitment, I’ve taught elementary and middle school in Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, and Harlem.

Thinking back to the connection with my research on identity, I had many conversations with my Nigerian father, who wanted me to pursue a career in finance. In Nigerian culture, there’s often the idea that doctor, lawyer and engineer are the only three career choices, but I was less interested in the money and prestige. I was committed to a career in education.

Today, as an assistant professor and the founder of a that supports the identities and well-being of youth of color, I have small moments when I think back to little Lakeya and smile. I’m doing exactly what she set out to do and more. She would be proud.

What advice would you give to your younger self?��

It’s okay to be misunderstood. It’s okay not to fit in. In fact, not fitting in is what makes you beautifully unique. I know that none of your identity and educational experiences may make sense now, but they will later. Trust me, it will make sense — not just for you but for many youths who find themselves making sense of their identities. In fact, you’ll dedicate your career to speaking, writing and doing community-based work about these topics. Finally, I know you’re looking for that example like yourself, with your dreams and who lives between multiple cultural worlds, but in time, you will become the example you’re looking for. Hold on. It’s going to be a beautiful roller coaster of a ride.

For more information, contact Afolalu at lafolalu@uw.edu.

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Katya Cherukumilli Photo: 91��

, Assistant professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering

What do you study at the 91��?

My research group, the Safe Water Equity and Longevity Lab, aims to bridge gaps between scientific discovery, technology design and safe water provision. We integrate methods from human-centered design and environmental engineering to investigate barriers that limit safe water access and to develop usable water quality monitoring and treatment technologies. Specifically, we use data science, experiments, hardware prototyping and community-engaged research methods to design collaborative tools that improve safe water management and mitigate exposure to chemical contaminants in water supplies.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From a young age, I always felt a deep connection to our planet. I loved spending most of my time outdoors exploring the natural world. I was very curious and talkative as a child, wanting to solve riddles, play games and learn about how everything worked. My curiosity led me down a winding path of research adventures that allowed me to study geology and supercontinents, climate change and alpine plant ecology, fuel-efficient cookstoves, wastewater irrigation and, eventually, safe drinking water.

From a young age, Cherukumilli enjoyed being outdoors in nature, and she often found herself drawn by some invisible force to the nearest body of water. Shown here is a seventh-grade Cherukumilli enjoying some water in California. Photo: Katya Cherukumilli/91��

When I reflect on how I ended up choosing to research access to drinking water, I think about the different places I have lived: south India, Florida, California and Washington. Each region has a uniquely different way of life, cultural traditions and natural environments. A common thread in each of the places I have called home was proximity to the coastline and easy access to fresh springs, rivers and lakes. I have always found myself drawn by an invisible force to the nearest body of water.

I am grateful that my career allows me to address environmental health challenges while also considering the human experience, to reflect on and reconcile inequities and injustices, and to collaboratively solve complex puzzles with brilliant students, colleagues and community partners.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t be scared to do what you love every day, follow your heart and never stop speaking your mind. You’ll eventually find your way and realize it was the journey that mattered in the end.

For more information, contact Cherukumilli at katyach@uw.edu.

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Stephen Groening Photo: Corinne Thrash

, Associate professor, Department of Cinema & Media Studies

What do you study at the 91��?

I am a media historian who specializes in the sociocultural aspects of media technologies. This includes researching and writing about devices themselves, the implications of the introduction and widespread adoption of these devices and how people use them. For example, my first book was . I have also published research on cell phones, , 16 mm training films, and the use of television screens in the family minivan.

What made you fall in love with your research area? ��

I was 7 when I was stuck on a Pan Am 747 for five hours on the tarmac at London Heathrow and boy, was it exciting when they finally played the movie on the big screen at the front of the cabin!

After that, I lived in Poland under a military dictatorship, which profoundly shaped my media experience growing up. For example, we used to watch Hollywood films played on a 16 mm projector in our living room — both the films and projector were provided through the U.S. Armed Forces. The range of films could be odd. I remember watching “Sophie’s Choice,” “Heartbeeps,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Going Ape!,” “Sleeper,” “Fire and Ice,” “The Towering Inferno,” “City on Fire,” “When Time Ran Out,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Krull” — not exactly .

At the same time, we were watching Polish television (mostly the animated shows “Pszczółka Maja” and “Bolek i Lolek”). Occasionally, a Hollywood film would be aired on TV, over-dubbed in Polish in such a way that the English language dialogue was still audible. I have distinct memories of watching “The Poseidon Adventure” and hearing the first few words of a line in English before the Polish translation came in on top of the dialogue. It wasn’t until a decade or so later that I learned this is not the standard technique for making alternate language versions of films.

We sometimes had access to U.S. television shows from other American diplomats who would return from home leave. They would bring videotape recordings, so I got to watch “Hogan’s Heroes,” “M*A*S*H” and “Gilligan’s Island” months after air date, complete with commercials (which I found both profoundly perplexing and compelling — As I type right now, I am singing the ). I even got to see “Roots” and “The Day After” on Betamax (we did not have what was then thought of as the inferior VHS format).

I would say that those media experiences — in-flight film, 16mm home exhibition, watching films on television in multiple languages — sparked my interest in our mediated mass culture. Until relatively recently, film studies was marked by a bias toward theatrical exhibition of feature films (with the occasional nod to experimental films shown in art galleries) and media studies was concerned with the effective transmission of messages to audiences. The forms of media encounter that are unforeseen and often unintended at the moment of production often get treated as accidental and inconsequential and yet, for many people that is the primary mode of encounter. Because of my experience, I know that all media forms, devices and their contents are contingent on a particular and fortuitous set of circumstances. So I find myself curious about those circumstances and their history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

If I had known I would become an academic, I might have told my 8-year-old self to take better notes and told my undergraduate self to spend more time in faculty office hours asking about academia. Knowing what I know now, I would have told myself 10 years ago to stop worrying what others might think and just write the damned book.

For more information, contact Groening at groening@uw.edu.

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June Lukuyu Photo: 91��

, Assistant professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

What do you study at the 91��?

My research centers on using transdisciplinary approaches to develop solutions for creating sustainable, inclusive and integrated energy solutions for underserved communities. My expertise supports policymakers and practitioners seeking equitable, community-centered energy transitions that combine technical and socioeconomic perspectives.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I grew up in a small community outside Nairobi, Kenya. From an early age, I saw firsthand the challenges of unreliable power: frequent outages, power surges and a system that did not always meet the needs of the people it served. When the lights went out, my family, like many in the area, was often left scrambling to preserve our food or finish homework assignments in candlelight. It was not just an inconvenience — it was a reminder of how something as essential as electricity could hold communities back. I knew from then that I wanted to do something about it, but at the time, I did not quite know how.

When I was in high school, I applied to colleges in the U.S. and was accepted to Smith College on a full scholarship. There, I pursued engineering science, but what really sparked my love for the field was not just the technical challenges — it was how energy systems intertwined with society. At Smith, I was not just solving equations. I was also exploring how power affects everything from education to health care to human development. My engineering courses were paired with courses in psychology, economics and sociology, and that blend of disciplines opened my eyes to a new way of thinking: Energy wasn’t just a technical problem to solve, it was a societal one.

The more I learned, the more I realized that fixing energy systems in underserved communities couldn’t be as simple as just adding more power or building bigger grids. It had to be about understanding the people who needed that power. I wanted to create systems that responded to real needs, that didn’t just drop in solutions, but considered the community’s culture, environment and existing infrastructure. After graduating, I had a job developing software to estimate the cost of power systems, but I kept thinking about how we could rethink energy to make it more sustainable, more inclusive and more connected to the social fabric of the places it served.

That thinking led me to pursue a master’s in renewable energy systems at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and then a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where my research focused on finding ways to develop energy systems that were as much about community as they were about technology. I didn’t just want to create another power system that might fail because it didn’t align with how people lived or how societies worked. Instead, I wanted to design systems that were responsive to local contexts and to the needs of communities they intended to serve, systems that people could rely on for the long haul.

In 2023, I joined the 91�� as an assistant professor, where I founded the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Energy Analytics for Society) research group. Our work is all about creating energy systems that work for the people who use them. It’s a mix of developing sustainable technology, social understanding and deep collaboration with communities. We’re working on projects in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and even here in the U.S., always with the goal of creating solutions that are both sustainable and tailored to the specific needs of each community.

What I love most about my research is that it’s not just about the science — it’s about the people. Every project is a chance to dive into a new community, understand its challenges and design solutions that truly fit. I’m passionate about making sure that when we think about energy, we’re thinking about people, not just power. And now, teaching and mentoring the next generation of engineers at 91�� gives me a chance to pass on that mindset — to inspire others to think beyond the technical and ask, “How does this system help the people who need it most?”

It’s been a winding journey, from a small town outside Nairobi to researching sustainable and inclusive energy solutions at a major university. But the core of it has always been the same: a desire to make a difference, to solve real-world problems with technology and to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are, has access to the energy they need to thrive.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I’d tell my younger self not to worry so much about fitting into a mold or following a traditional path. Every experience, even the ones that seem unrelated or uncertain, contributes to your journey. Embrace the uncertainty, because it often leads to the most interesting places.

I’d also remind myself to be patient and kind with the process. Progress isn’t always linear. There were times when I felt overwhelmed or unsure of my next step. It’s okay to feel that way — it’s part of learning and growing. The setbacks, the challenges and even the moments of doubt are just as important as the successes. They shape you and teach you valuable lessons.

Finally, I’d tell myself to take more risks — to seek out the scary opportunities, the ones that seem daunting or unfamiliar. You never know where a seemingly small decision or unexpected twist in the road might take you. Sometimes, the things that seem out of reach are the ones worth pursuing most. So, trust yourself, stay curious and keep pushing forward, even when the path isn’t always clear. The journey will be worth it.

For more information, contact Lukuyu at jlukuyu@uw.edu.

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Jennifer Nemhauser Photo: 91��

, Professor, Department of Biology

What do you study at the 91��?

We use plant, yeast and human cells to understand and engineer the molecular interactions that allow organisms to process information during development and stress responses.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was a little girl, I attended a Montessori school in Los Angeles. This was the 1970s, and the teachers embraced the philosophy of letting a child’s interest direct their learning. I had one teacher that I really bonded with, named Dr. Pillai. He introduced me to the process of science research, rewarding my seemingly insatiable curiosity with thoughtful responses and sharing just the right book or model or experiment to help me dig deeper into any topic that caught my interest. He made me feel like asking a million questions was a wonderful quality (something not everyone agreed with, then or now!).

The pure joy of learning about the natural world through experimentation struck a deep chord. While the road was quite twisty between those early years and my decision to pursue science as a career, I am sure that I would not be here today without that early encouragement.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Be nicer to your dad when he is helping you with your math homework!

For more information, contact Nemhauser at jn7@uw.edu.

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Zoe Pleasure Photo: 91��

, Doctoral student, Department of Health Systems & Population Health, School of Public Health

What do you study at the 91��?

My research focuses on understanding how people make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health care while navigating the multi-level influences that shape our current societal structure. In my research, I use mixed methods to analyze more traditional data sources, such as qualitative interviews and surveys, and newer data sources, such as TikTok videos, Reddit posts and electronic health record notes, to understand what type of information people seek out about sexual and reproductive health, their motivations behind decision-making and their care interactions with providers. I seek to examine how people with different lived experiences (for example: chronic disease, young people, veterans) may have different decision-making motivations and informational needs to make autonomous reproductive health decisions.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I first became passionate about sexual and reproductive health while taking the class Sex, Gender and the Brain as a neuroscience undergraduate at Emory University. My final project focused on how anti-choice groups attempted to limit reproductive autonomy by promoting erroneous interpretations of neuroscience data to argue that oral contraceptives are dangerous. The class demonstrated to me how scientists could meld science with feminist theory and, more specifically, how the intentional distribution of misinformation online provides another tool to limit bodily autonomy.

Earlier in my educational career, teachers often framed my biology, chemistry and physics classes as apolitical or unbiased by societal structures. I now know that is not true. This class was one of the first classes where we were asked to name the specific orientation or lens of a research paper or study and describe who and what was left out.

I quickly dropped my neuroscience focus after this class and instead focused on policy-relevant, public –health-informed research that aims to improve access to and the equity and quality of sexual and reproductive health care and information. While earning a master’s of public health, I started working at the Guttmacher Institute, a leading sexual and reproductive health policy and research organization based in New York City. There, I started working on research projects that directly studied ways to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would advise my younger self to think critically about the lessons that are available in all academic classes, including English, dance, and history, and to think about how these lessons can be used to become a better public health researcher and writer.

For more information, contact Pleasure at zoep2@uw.edu.

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Kira Schabram Photo: 91��

, Assistant professor of management, Foster School of Business

What do you study at the 91��?

My two primary topics of inquiry are meaningful work and employee sustainability. My research examines how to support employees who want to make a positive difference through their work in ways big and small, ranging from employees who view work as a calling — not just a paycheck but as a source of personal, social or moral significance — to those engaging in everyday acts of helping, kindness and compassion. I study the challenges that impede these activities to determine how employees can conduct their work more sustainably.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I fell into academia. In 2007, I was working for the largest animal shelter in North America and I enrolled in a part-time master’s program in business because I had aspirations of one day rising into a leadership position in animal welfare.

Schabram originally worked at an animal shelter and started taking master’s classes as a way to prepare for a leadership role in animal welfare. Photo: Kira Schabram/91��

In 2008, the Great Recession hit and I lost my job, but I also learned that professors in my master’s program did research (who knew!). At the time, research on meaningful work was in its infancy and focused primarily on the positive aspects (for example: showing that employees doing meaningful work have greater engagement and satisfaction). I saw this among my co-workers in the animal shelter, but I also saw so much frustration, burnout and resignation. Every day, employees who wanted to save animals’ lives were in the corner crying because of their inability to do so.

I applied to 10 doctoral programs and got into one, where I was lucky that my supervisors encouraged me to join the burgeoning wave of research looking at meaningful work as a double-edged sword and what to do about it. The rest is history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

This is less advice for my younger self and more gratitude to all the people who helped me along the way. Early in your career, you do not yet know how anything works: how research works, what journals are appropriate outlets, how to develop the ability to know where to dedicate our efforts: what research projects are not only novel but important. Until then, senior mentors are invaluable guides. What makes for a successful career is all the people who generously offer their time and guidance along the way. I did many, many things wrong in my early career, but one thing I did right was to seek out and show my appreciation for any and all help. I would not be here if it wasn’t for the thousands of hours invested in me by others in the field and I hope I am paying that forward in a small part.

For more information, contact Schabram at schabram@uw.edu.

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Bára Šafářová Photo: Christa Holka

, Assistant professor, School of Urban Studies, 91�� Tacoma

What do you study at the 91��?

��My research is primarily on housing segregation, but I have also become an expert on the overlap of and its relationship with the greening of cities in times of climate change and rising inequality.

What made you fall in love with this new research area?

��I happened to fall into this area in the middle of the night a couple months into my architecture doctoral program. It was early spring. I had moved to College Station, Texas, and was living in a relatively old timberstick house. It was about 1 a.m. when I jumped into my bed and then yelped out from a sharp pain in my lower back.

My first thought: a snake bite?! I leapt up, squeezed my back as if I could prevent any poison from getting in, turned on the light and scanned the bed for a snake. Nothing. Instead I saw a bug — a flat dark bug, not even an inch long. I scooped it up in a jar, let go of my “poisoned skin” and sighed in relief.

Then I thought, could this be a risky bug? I had just moved to the U.S. from Europe and I didn’t know the local fauna at all. To resolve this in a rational way, I settled on eliminating worst-case scenarios. I Googled: “most dangerous insects in Texas.” I checked the bug in the jar for unique characteristics and compared it to a ranking of… JESUS! The third bug on the list was exactly the same bug that was staring at me from the jar: A Kissing bug… a bite from which can lead to Chagas disease… Deadly… No cure… Organs disintegrate in several decades.

My heart was pounding. My hand was back on the bite site. I was skimming the internet frantically. It was so late, and I had no one to call at that hour. I thought of calling people in Europe, but what would they know? I forced myself to read slowly and make a plan.

The message became clear: There is no cure for Chagas disease and the only symptom (sometimes) occurs the following morning: the swelling of one eyelid on the side closer to the bite site. Even if I went to the hospital, this seemed to be an under-studied disease and tests were limited. I resolved to just sleep it off and go to the doctor in the morning.

I woke up early. My face was symmetrical. Phew. I took the jar to the clinic right as they opened. Someone in the waiting room told me about getting bit by a brown recluse. “Oh well,” I thought, giving up on life a little.

The doctor took one look at the bug and said “Yes, that is a Kissing bug. There’s no cure. No test. Just move on, sorry!”

Perplexed, but also assured by the lack of urgency, I left the clinic. Over the next few days, my worries slowly faded as there apparently was nothing to do about this. I tossed the bug.

Two weeks later I saw an announcement on the university homepage from , then a doctoral student studying biomedical sciences. She was asking about any Kissing bug sightings and .

I immediately wrote to Rachel and reported what happened. She was super excited and asked me to bring her the bug. I said I threw it out, but had photos and I found a similar one — I had lots of bugs in my old house. We met over coffee. Rachel informed me that the bug was NOT a Kissing bug and that I should not worry. She could test me, but it was not necessary.

Šafářová collecting data in the colonias for the pilot project inspired by her encounter with a bug. Photo: Bára Šafářová/91��

She explained the science of how the parasite behind Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, . It’s quite the process: After the bug bites you, it poops. The parasites are in infected bugs’ poop, which means that the poop has to get smudged into the bite site for you to get infected.

Then Rachel asked about my doctoral research and I told her I was studying housing in the colonias that line the border of Texas and Mexico. Her eyes lit up because she was looking to get samples from there. Thanks to the bug bite and my coffee with Rachel, a whole team formed and we started a pilot project that combined our research interests. This study became my master’s thesis, and six years later in the prestigious Habitat International journal.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Talk to doctoral students from many more disciplines!

For more information, contact Šafářová at bsafar@uw.edu.

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Adam Summers Photo: 91��

, Professor, Department of Biology and School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

What do you study at the 91��?

I am a natural historian who applies physics, math and engineering concepts to living systems to understand how they work. My research is driven by both the evolutionary implications of function and the possibility of bio-inspired design.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From my earliest childhood I spent three seasons in downtown Manhattan and summer in the north woods of Ontario, Canada. The contrast between the most urban environment and a place without utilities or indoor plumbing was formative. Fishes, whether in tanks, on lines, or through my SCUBA mask, were my constant and most interesting companions. No detail was too obscure, and no species too drab to escape my attention.

I left fish behind when I got to college. Instead, it was a constant joy of mathematics and engineering, with a liberal arts sprinkling of art history, economics and German. After college I tried many things: I started a business, taught in the NYC public school system and attempted a career in photography. But I wasn’t willing to persist when things were hard or no fun. Then I went to Australia to become a SCUBA instructor. There I met my first biologist. I was smitten with the idea of making a living trying to understand animals.

On my return to New York, I immersed myself in biology, particularly the natural history of fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Spending hours in the field closely observing animals and their environment was one avenue of inspiration. The other was investigating animals’ shape, or morphology, with an electron microscope. The link between form and function was how my weeks passed — looking at microstructure, then wading in temporary ponds for larval salamanders. I fell completely in love with both areas and have made my career at that interface.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Treasure your mentors in the moment. They are gone too soon and you will never feel like you made it clear enough how much they affected you and your career.

For more information, contact Summers at fishguy@uw.edu.��

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Timeka Tounsel Photo: 91��

, Associate professor, Department of Communication

What do you study at the 91��?

I am a critical-cultural studies scholar who focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in the media. Specifically, I study how Black people negotiate mass media as marginalized subjects whose status as citizens is always precarious. I’m especially interested in the stories that circulate about Black women, both external narratives and the stories that Black women craft about themselves.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I sometimes think of myself as an accidental academic. I pursued a degree in magazine journalism and international relations in college with the intention of becoming a magazine editor. But everything changed the summer I landed an internship at my dream magazine, . At the time, many publications were closing their doors or downsizing their staff in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. All of a sudden, pursuing a career in magazines began to feel like a much larger risk than I was comfortable with. Aside from the industry woes, I also realized that I had just as much fun studying magazines (and other media) for class projects as I did working for one.

At Essence, the assignments that my editor gave me reflected a particular image of Black womanhood and assumptions about Blackness, femininity and masculinity that were key to the magazine’s brand. When I returned to school for my last year of college, I took a Black feminist theory course where I wrote essays exploring the questions that had popped into my mind during my internship – questions that I couldn’t shake, questions that played in the background of my mind whenever I was walking through the magazine aisle at the grocery store, or watching television or a movie. This taste of how deeply satisfying a life of the mind could be was a turning point. By the end of the feminist theory course I had decided to apply to graduate school.

My first book, “,” was a full-circle moment. In the book I offer a cultural history of Essence magazine and position it as a predecessor to contemporary commercial representations of Black womanhood realized in the 2010s through hashtags like #BlackGirlMagic and advertising campaigns, such as Proctor and Gamble’s “.” It was an amazing feeling to follow my curiosity and return to the questions that first captivated my mind as an intern. During the writing process I realized that the seeds of these questions had started even earlier, when I was a little girl sitting in a Black beauty shop with dozens of issues of Ebony, Jet and Essence magazines. Long before I was old enough to fully comprehend the articles, the images in these magazines captivated me, beaconing me to explore further.

The thing that most fills my heart about the scholarly path that I’ve chosen is being able to document and amplify the brilliance and beauty of Black women. There’s so much that’s problematic in the stories that society tells about Black women, but the brightest moments in my teaching and research are connected to the dope narratives that Black women craft about themselves.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Lean into the questions that captivate you and the subject areas that awaken your passion and curiosity. This will point you in the direction of your most fulfilling research projects and your very best writing.

For more information, contact Tounsel at timeka@uw.edu.

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Kendall Valentine Photo: 91��

, Assistant professor, School of Oceanography

What do you study at the 91��?

��I’m a coastal ecogeomorphologist, which means I study how ecology, geology and physics change the landscape on the coast. A lot of my work focuses on how biology (plants, microbes) alters how mud moves around coastal systems and changes what our coastlines look like. I am particularly interested in marshes and mudflats. I go into the field to measure what is really happening on the coast, and then develop numerical computer models to predict how these processes will change in the future.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was 5 years old, my family went on vacation to Cape Cod National Seashore. We attended an educational program at the Salt Pond Visitor Center, and I knew I was in love. The stinky, muddy marsh felt like home to me immediately, and I still remember talking to the volunteer scientist about how marshes work. At that time, however, I had no idea that you could study marshes and mud as your job!

That formative memory never left me, even though, as I continued in school and focused on science, I intended to become a medical doctor. In my world, if you were good at math and science, the logical career path was to become a medical doctor.

Valentine fell in love with marshes on a trip to Cape Cod National Seashore when she was five years old, but she had no idea that you could have a career studying marshes and mud. Shown here is five-year-old Valentine on the beach at Cape Cod National Seashore. Photo: Kendall Valentine/91��

I went to college at Boston University, where I planned to major in chemistry. But for every class project, I ended up focusing on oceans and coastlines. I had a wonderful TA who noticed this trend and mentioned to me in passing that my university had a marine science program and that maybe I should consider taking a class in that program to see if I liked it. I enrolled in a class called “Estuaries” and I’ve never looked back. The first week of the class, we took a field trip to collect data in a marsh and I was instantly transported back to my 5-year-old self, loving the marsh. I was the first student who jumped into the mud to collect data, and I didn’t want to leave. Within a few weeks I was working in that professor’s lab, and I really haven’t left the marsh since.

I also started developing so many questions about how things worked — and how everything tied together, from the mud to the birds — that I quickly realized that research and teaching in the field was what I needed to do with my life. My research has expanded a lot since then to encompass many different types of coasts, but my love for the rotten-egg-smelling, squelching mud drives a lot of what I choose to do. Being out in nature and seeing the processes happen in real time inspires me to understand coastal systems and help make a more resilient future for our planet and for people.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I am incredibly lucky to have a job that I absolutely love, and I would encourage my younger self to pursue what makes me happy. Sometimes my work hardly feels like work because I am so engaged and excited by what I am discovering and the students I get to work with. While every day isn’t always amazing (I have bad work days too!), at the end of the work week I’m always thankful for what a great job I have. I hope that everyone is able to find something they are passionate about in their life.

I would also say: Believe in yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. Just keep doing what you love and what you think is important and helpful to others, and everything will work out okay.

For more information, contact Valentine at kvalent@uw.edu.

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Navid Zobeiry Photo: 91��

, Associate professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering

What do you study at the 91��?

My research team integrates materials science, data science and advanced manufacturing with primary applications in aerospace. We focus on three main areas:

Smart material testing methods, using physics-informed machine learning to control the testing parameters.
Smart manufacturing that leverages automation, sensing and machine learning. The goal is to develop AI for autonomous and self-aware manufacturing systems.
Smart engineering approaches to accelerate aerospace design and certification. We use a combination of machine learning, automated testing and physics-based numerical simulations techniques.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

According to my parents, my first word was “hot.” Looking back, it seems like a fitting start to a life deeply intertwined with the principles of heat transfer. My fascination with heat and materials began early and found a natural outlet in my love for cooking. I enjoy experimenting with different cooking techniques, all of which benefit immensely from an understanding of heat transfer. This passion even led me to publish a cookbook a few years ago.

After earning my doctoral degree, I began working at a research center in Canada, where I collaborated with various companies to solve their manufacturing challenges. Over time, I worked with a wide range of materials — concrete, wood, polymers, metals and composites. As I delved deeper into manufacturing, I started noticing fascinating parallels between it and cooking. Both require precise control of variables like temperature and pressure to transform materials into something new.

For instance, making aerospace composite parts in an autoclave is essentially pressure-cooking a layered material. Similarly, tempering chocolate to achieve its perfect microstructure, texture and snap is strikingly similar to controlling the crystallinity of thermoplastics to optimize their performance. Recognizing these connections allowed me to combine my personal passion for cooking with my professional love for materials science and engineering.

This love for exploring the science behind materials was paired with my lifelong interest in mathematics, which naturally led me to integrate machine learning and AI into my research. These tools provided a way to unlock deeper insights and bring innovation into material design and manufacturing. For example, my very first project as a professor at the 91�� was a collaboration with Boeing, where we developed AI for manufacturing aerospace composites. It was akin to creating a smart oven that can monitor the temperature of various parts and autonomously adjust the controls — a direct parallel to advanced cooking techniques.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

As you explore different options for your career, focus more on what you truly love to do. Don’t be afraid to combine your personal passions with your professional goals — start doing this earlier. The joy and fulfillment you’ll find in aligning your personal interests with your career will open doors to creative opportunities and unique solutions you might not have imagined. Trust the process and follow what excites you most.

For more information, contact Zobeiry at navidz@uw.edu.

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15 91�� professors among new class of members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences

James Urton — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 18:46:33 +0000

UPDATE (Aug. 2, 2024): A previous version of this story misstated Paul Kinahan’s name.

Fifteen faculty members at the 91�� have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state . Selection recognizes the new members’ “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”

Twelve 91�� faculty members were selected by current WSAS members. They are:

, associate professor of epidemiology, of health systems and population health, and of child, family and population health nursing, who “possesses the rare combination of scientific rigor and courageous commitment to local community health. Identifying original ways to examine questions, and seeking out appropriate scientific methods to study those questions, allow her to translate research to collaborative community interventions with a direct impact on the health of communities.”
, the Shauna C. Larson endowed chair in learning sciences, for “his work in the cultural basis of scientific research and learning, bringing rigor and light to multiculturalism in science and STEM education through STEM Teaching Tools and other programs.”
, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, “for her sustained commitment to community-engaged, science-driven practice and policy change related to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of mental health, with a focus on providing effective, sustainable and culturally appropriate care to people with serious mental illness.”
, the David and Nancy Auth endowed professor in bioengineering, who has “charted new paths for 30-plus years. Her quest to deeply understand protein folding/unfolding and the link to amyloid diseases has propelled her to pioneer unique computational and experimental methods leading to the discovery and characterization of a new protein structure linked to toxicity early in amyloidogenesis.”
, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of global health, and of emergency medicine, who is “a global and national leader at the intersection of climate change and health whose work has advanced our understanding of climate change health effects and has informed the design of preparedness and disaster response planning in Washington state, nationally and globally.”
, professor of bioengineering and of radiology, who is “recognized for his contributions to the science and engineering of medical imaging systems and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies advancing the capabilities of medical imaging.”
, the Donald W. and Ruth Mary Close professor of electrical and computer engineering and faculty member in the 91�� Clean Energy Institute, who is “recognized for his distinguished research contributions to the design and operation of economical, reliable and environmentally sustainable power systems, and the development of influential educational materials used to train the next generation of power engineers.”
, senior vice president and director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Joel D. Meyers endowed chair of clinical research and of vaccine and infectious disease at Fred Hutch, and 91�� professor of medicine, who is “is recognized for her seminal contributions to developing validated laboratory methods for interrogating cellular and humoral immune responses to HIV, TB and COVID-19 vaccines, which has led to the analysis of more than 100 vaccine and monoclonal antibody trials for nearly three decades, including evidence of T-cell immune responses as a correlate of vaccine protection.”
, professor of political science and the Walker family professor for the arts and sciences, who is a specialist “in environmental politics, international political economy, and the politics of nonprofit organizations. He is widely recognized as a leader in the field of environmental politics, best known for his path-breaking research on the role firms and nongovernmental organizations can play in promoting more stringent regulatory standards.”
, the Ballmer endowed dean of social work, for investigations of “how inequality, in its many forms, affects health, illness and quality of life. He has developed unique conceptual frameworks to investigate how race, ethnicity and immigration are associated with health and social outcomes.”
, professor of chemistry, who is elected “for distinguished scientific and community contributions to advancing the field of electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, which have transformed how researchers worldwide analyze data.”
, professor of bioengineering and of ophthalmology, whose “pioneering work in biomedical optics, including the invention of optical microangiography and development of novel imaging technologies, has transformed clinical practice, significantly improving patient outcomes. Through his numerous publications, patents and clinical translations, his research has helped shape the field of biomedical optics.”

Three new 91�� members of the academy were selected by virtue of their previous election to one of the National Academies. They are:

, professor of atmospheric and climate science, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences “for contributions to research and expertise in atmospheric radiation and cloud processes, remote sensing, cloud/aerosol/radiation/climate interactions, stratospheric circulation and stratosphere-troposphere exchanges and coupling, and climate change.”
, the Bartley Dobb professor for the study and prevention of violence in the Department of Epidemiology and a 91�� professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden, especially among underserved communities and populations.”
, division chief of general pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a 91�� professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for her leadership in advancing child health equity through scholarship in community-partnered design of innovative care models in pediatric primary care. Her work has transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

In addition, Dr. , president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and of the Cancer Consortium — a partnership between the 91��, Seattle Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutch — was elected to the academy for being “part of a research effort that found mutations in the cell-surface protein epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which plays an important role in helping lung cancer cells survive. Today, drugs that target EGFR can dramatically change outcomes for lung cancer patients by slowing the progression of the cancer.”

the Boeing-Egtvedt endowed professor and chair in aeronautics and astronautics, will join the board effective Sept. 30. Morgansen was elected to WSAS in 2021 “for significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems,” and “for leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.” She is currently director of the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, co-director of the 91�� Space Policy and Research Center and chair of the AIAA Aerospace Department Chairs Association. She is also a member of the WSAS education committee.

“I am excited to serve on the WSAS board and work with WSAS members to leverage and grow WSAS’s impact by identifying new opportunities for WSAS to collaborate and partner with the state in addressing the state’s needs,” said Morgansen.

The new members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences will be formally inducted in September.

91�� graduate and professional disciplines have strong showing on US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings

Jackson Holtz — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 04:03:21 +0000

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Schools rankings. Photo: 91��

UPDATE:

On June 18, U.S. News & Report updated the rankings to include a number of engineering disciplines.��The College of Engineering was ranked No. 21 overall and nine subdisciplines ranked in the top 35. They include:

Engineering: Aerospace, Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering, 17th

Engineering: Chemical Engineering, 25th

Engineering: Civil Engineering,12th

Engineering: Computer Engineering, 12th

Engineering: Electrical, Electronic & Communications Engineering, 15th

Engineering: Environmental & Environmental Health Engineering, 18th

Engineering: Industrial Manufacturing & Systems Engineering, 29th

Engineering: Materials Engineering, 29th

Engineering: Mechanical Engineering, 33rd

Original story:

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Graduate Schools released late Monday.

While the 91�� celebrates the success and impact of the programs recognized by U.S. News — and many applicants use these rankings to help them select schools and discover potential areas of study — the University also recognizes shortcomings inherent in the ranking systems.

91�� leaders continue to work with U.S. News and other ranking organizations — to the extent they are open to it — to improve their methodologies. And schools, colleges and departments continually reevaluate the benefits and potential shortfalls of participating in specific rankings.

“Across the 91��, our world-class graduate and professional degree programs are not only expanding and creating knowledge and discovery, they are training the next generation of highly skilled professionals and Ph.D.s who are needed in our labs, classrooms and hospitals; in government and industry and everywhere that we face serious and urgent challenges,” said 91�� President Ana Mari Cauce. “We’re happy to see the success of these programs be recognized.”

Dozens of 91�� schools and departments placed prominently in the 2025 rankings — excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, more than 30 placed in the top 10, and more than 60 in the top 35.

In new rankings released this year, the 91�� placed in the top 10 nationwide in public affairs, nursing, speech and language pathology, computer science, education, public health, social work and business, according to U.S. News.

The 91��’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and placed eighth in the nation. The Evans School’s environmental policy program was ranked second, nonprofit management and social policy each ranking at No. 8, public finance and budgeting came in at No. 10.

This year’s rankings solidified 91�� leadership in the health sciences: The 91�� School of Nursing tied for third place for the doctor of nursing practice program, and nursing schools at 91�� Bothell and 91�� Tacoma are among the top 10 public institutions that offer a master’s degree. The School of Public Health tied for No. 7, and had three programs — biostatistics, environmental health sciences and epidemiology — in the top 10. The School of Social Work was ranked No. 7 this year and the School of Pharmacy placed third among public institutions on the West Coast. Dentistry programs are not ranked by U.S. News

The 91��’s programs in speech and language pathology ranked No. 5, topping schools on the West Coast.�� Three programs from the College of Education placed in the top 10, and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering this year tied for seventh place overall, and three programs ranked in the top 10, including artificial intelligence at No. 6, programming language at No. 8, and systems at No. 9.

U.S. News said it would release 2025 rankings for clinical psychology and other engineering programs at a later date.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. Information about U.S. News & World Report’s methodology can be found .

TOP 10:

Public Affairs (environmental policy): 2nd

Library and Information Studies (overall): Tie for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information studies (digital librarianship): Tie for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): Two-way tie for 3rd

Physics (nuclear): Tied for 3rd (ranked in 2024)

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Speech-language pathology: Four-way tie for 5th

Nurse practitioner (pediatric acute care): Tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 6th

Nurse midwifery: Tie for 6th

Computer science (overall): Three-way tie for 7th

Education (secondary education): 7th

Education (elementary education): 7th

School of Public Health (overall): Tie for 7th

Public Health (biostatistics): 7^th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 7th

School of Social Work (overall): 7th

Statistics: Tie for 7th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (programming language): 8th

Education (curriculum/instruction): Three-way tie for 8th

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): 8th

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 8th

Public Affairs (social policy): 8th

Computer science (systems): 9th

Earth sciences: Five-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Public Health (epidemiology): 9th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 10th

Business (part-time MBA): Three-way tie for 10th

Business (information systems): Two-way tie for 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Three-way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Business (marketing): Six-way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2024)

Business (analytics): Four-way tie for 19th

Business (entrepreneurship): Four-way tie for 21st

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry: Three-way tie for 24th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2024)

Computer science (theory): 11th

College of Education (overall): Two-way tie for 23rd

Education (administration/supervision): Two-way tie for 11th

Education (policy): Two-way tie for 19th

Education (special education): 11th

Mathematics (applied math): 21st (ranked in 2024)

Nursing master’s (overall): Two-way tie for 12th

Nurse practitioner (family): Three-way tie for 11th

College of Pharmacy (overall): Three-way tie for 12th

Physics (overall): 20th (ranked in 2024)

Public Health (health policy and management): Tie for 14th

Public Health (social behavior): 14th

Public Affairs (global policy): 14th

Public Affairs (leadership): Three-way tie for 11th

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 13th

Psychology: Seven-way way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Sociology (overall): Three-way tie for 20th (ranked in 2022)

Sociology (population): Tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (accounting): Four-way tie for 29th

Business (full-time MBA): Two-way tie for 27th

Business (supply chain management): Three-way tie for 21st

English: Seven-way tie for 32nd (ranked in 2022)

History: Four-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics: Three-way tie for 27th (ranked in 2024)

Political science: Three-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2022)

91�� graduate and professional disciplines place highly in US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings

Jackson Holtz — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 04:03:03 +0000

Dozens of the 91��’s graduate and professional programs ranked highly on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list. Photo: Raymond Smith/91��

The 91��’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to�� released late Monday.

In the past year, the and the withdrew from the U.S. News rankings citing concerns that some of the methodology in the rankings for those specific disciplines incentivize actions and policies that run counter to the schools’ public service missions. U.S. News announced last week that rankings for law and medicine will be published at a later date due to “an unprecedented number of inquiries” received from schools.

91�� leaders will continue to work with U.S. News and other ranking organizations — to the extent they are open to it — to improve their methodologies. And schools, colleges and departments continually reevaluate the benefits and potential shortfalls of participating in specific rankings.

“Our public University is committed to delivering a world-class education and training to the talented graduate and professional students who come here to pursue their academic and career goals. We measure our success first and foremost by the impact their students and alumni make in Washington and throughout the world,” said 91�� President Ana Mari Cauce. “These rankings, which are just one of many metrics of success, reflect the 91��’s leadership in providing outstanding graduate and professional degree programs.”

Dozens of 91�� schools and departments placed prominently in the 2024 rankings — excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, 35 placed in the top 10, and more than 75 in the top 35.

In new rankings released this year, the 91�� leads the nation in public affairs, nursing,��physics, education, computer science, public health and Earth sciences, according to U.S. News.

The��has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and tied for eighth place with the University of Chicago. The Evans School’s environmental policy program tied for second in the nation with Duke University, nonprofit management was ranked No. 5 and public finance and budgeting came in at No 9.

This year’s rankings solidified 91�� leadership in the health sciences: The��held the No. 1 overall ranking for a public school offering a doctor of nursing practice program, and nursing schools at 91�� Bothell and 91�� Tacoma again collectively tied for No. 1 among public schools that offer a master’s degree. The tied for No. 5, and had four programs — biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology and social behavior — in the top 10. Previous year’s rankings placed the at No. 2 and the at No. 7. Schools offering dentistry programs are not ranked by U.S. News.

The this year tied for fifth place overall alongside University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and three programs ranked in the top 10, including programming language at No. 5, and artificial intelligence and systems both at No. 7.

Five programs from the placed in the top 10 and the was recognized with five-way tie for the No. 9 spot in Earth sciences. The ’ nuclear physics department tied for No. 3 with Stony Brook University, joining statistics in the ranking’s top 10.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. Information about U.S. News & World Report’s methodology can be found��.

TOP 10:

Public Affairs (environmental policy): Tie for 2nd

Library and Information Studies (overall): Tie for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and information studies (digital librarianship): Tie for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

School of Social Work (overall): Five-way tie for 2nd (ranked in 2019)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): Three-way tie for 2nd

Physics (nuclear): Tied for 3rd

Nursing master’s (overall): Tie for 4th

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Education (secondary education): 5th

Education (elementary��education): Tie for 5th

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 5th

School of Public Health (overall): Three-way tie for 5th

Psychology (clinical): Three-way tie for 5th (ranked in 2021)

Computer science (overall): Tie for 5th

Computer science (programming language): Tie for 5th

Nurse practitioner (pediatric acute care): Tie for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Nurse practitioner (pediatric primary care): Tie for 5th

Public Health (biostatistics):��6th

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 7th

Computer science (systems): 7th

Pharmacy: Six-way tie for 7th (ranked in 2021)

Statistics: Tie for 7th (ranked in 2022)

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): Tie for 8th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 8th

Nurse midwifery: Three-way tie for 8th (ranked in 2021)

Public Health (epidemiology): 9th

Speech-language pathology: Six-way tie for 10th (ranked in 2022)

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th

Earth sciences: Five-way tie for 9th

Education (special education): 9th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 9th

Education (curriculum/instruction): Tie for 10th

Education (administration/supervision): Three-way tie for 10th

Public Health (social behavior): 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Three-way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Business (full-time MBA): 20th

Business (information systems): Three-way tie for 17th

Business (marketing): Six-way tie for 23rd

Business (part-time MBA): Tie for 11th

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th

Chemistry: Three-way tie for 24th

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd

Computer science (theory): 11th

College of Education (overall): Two-way tie for 11th

Education (policy): 14th

College of Engineering (overall): 25th

Engineering (aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical): 17th

Engineering (biomedical): Four-way tie for 14th

Engineering (chemical): Three-way tie for 24th

Engineering (computer): Three-way tie for 13th

Engineering (civil): Six-way tie for 19th

Engineering (electrical): Seven-way tie for 16th

Engineering (industrial/manufacturing/systems): Six-way tie for 21st

Engineering (environmental/environmental health): Four-way tie for 21st

Engineering (mechanical): Five-way tie for 28th

Health care management (School of Public Health): Three-way tie for 16th

Mathematics (applied math): 21st

Nurse practitioner (family): 12th

Physics (overall): 20th

Public Health (health policy and management): 12th

Public Affairs (leadership): 11th

Public Affairs (local government management): Four-way tie for 24th

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 13th

Public Affairs (social policy): 15th

Psychology: Seven-way way tie for 23rd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Sociology (overall): Three-way tie for 20th (ranked in 2022)

Sociology (population): Tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (accounting): Five-way tie for 29th

Business (analytics): Four-way tie for 34th

Business (management): Nine-way tie for 27th

Business (executive MBA): Four-way tie for 27th

Engineering (materials engineering): Three-way tie for 34th

English: Seven-way tie for 32nd (ranked in 2022)

History: Four-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics:��Three-way tie for 27th

Political science: Three-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2022)

For more information, contact Victor Balta at balta@uw.edu.

$43 million set of gifts from Ballmer Group to bolster early learning programs in Washington state

Jackson Holtz — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:01:11 +0000

Fueling a pipeline of early childhood educators in Washington state, Ballmer Group is investing $43 million in the 91�� College of Education and other partners. Photo: Cultivate Learning/91��

Ballmer Group commits $38 million anchor gift to 91�� aligned with additional $5 million for early childhood workforce advocacy and programs to foster leaders of color in the field

The 91�� today announced that it is part of a multi-pronged grantmaking strategy from Ballmer Group aimed at drawing more people into careers in early childhood education in our state — including by providing more than 1,500 scholarships over the next eight years.

Ballmer Group is providing a set of gifts totaling more than $43 million to fund scholarships, leadership development and advocacy across multiple organizations, reducing the financial barriers that prevent talent from entering the early childhood workforce. The gifts ensure Washington can successfully implement the Fair Start for Kids Act and build racially diverse leadership in the broader policy field.

The strategy includes a $38 million anchor gift to the 91�� College of Education; $1.65 million to , an organization that works to elevate diverse leadership across the early childhood policy field; and $4 million to to lead advocacy efforts aimed at improving compensation, well-being and professional development opportunities that improve recruitment, retention and workforce quality.

The grants to 91�� include support for more than 1,500 scholarships over the next eight years for students pursuing bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and high school internships in early childhood education. These cost-of-attendance scholarships cover tuition and other expenses. The support aims to reduce or remove financial barriers for students pursuing careers in early childhood education while attracting a more diverse workforce to the field. Studies show that diversity among teachers results in better outcomes for all students, and especially those from historically marginalized communities.

“The evidence is clear that early childhood education is a key factor in improving lifelong prospects, health and well-being,” said 91�� President Ana Mari Cauce. “We are deeply grateful for Ballmer Group’s visionary investment in training the skilled, dedicated early childhood educators whose work makes a lifetime of positive impact for children, families and communities.”

Removing barriers to attaining degrees in early childhood education will help address the shortage of credentialed teachers, coaches and other early childhood professionals in the state. Too often, a student’s financial hardship prevents them from earning degrees; and these Ballmer Group gifts will help more than 1,200 students attain degrees without going into debt.

“Research shows that a child’s earliest years are the most important period of development in their life, yet early childhood education is among the lowest-paid careers in the United States. That dynamic does not make sense if we want the best for our kids and the great people who care for them,” said Connie Ballmer, Ballmer Group co-founder. “Our approach with these investments is to tackle the challenges facing the early childhood workforce on multiple fronts: through the direct development of diverse talent at the 91��, the increased representation of BIPOC policy leaders via Pathwaves, and important state-level advocacy for policy and public investment into the early childhood workforce via Child Care Aware.”

Steve and Connie Ballmer have a history of giving catalytic gifts to the 91�� that are focused on improved health and well-being. In 2021, they gave a $38 million landmark gift to 91�� School of Social Work and 91�� Medicine that aims to increase the pipeline of well-trained professionals in behavioral health across Washington state via student scholarships and specialized program support. Other gifts have supported 91�� Medicine’s COVID-19 response efforts; the creation of the Excellence in Social Impact Endowed Scholarship Fund for undergraduate and graduate students in the 91�� School of Social Work; as well as gifts to support the provost, the 91�� School of Public Health and more.

91�� College of Education Dean Mia Tuan Photo: Caleb Albright/91��

“Without intentional work to remove barriers for students and professionals of color, the workforce will lose valuable racial diversity in the field,” said Mia Tuan, dean of the 91�� College of Education. “The early childhood field has a historically underpaid workforce, contributing to racial and gender inequity in economic mobility for the people tasked with the healthy development of children in a critical period of growth and for the working families that rely on child care to maintain their own employment. These gifts help us to begin to make systemic changes.”

More work is required to increase the number of people entering early childhood education and bolster the number of people of color teaching in the field. The Washington legislature can this session continue investments in the Fair Start for Kids Act by increasing reimbursement rates for licensed child care programs. At the same time, officials in Washington are working to establish an affordable child care system that anchors how child care is funded to the true costs of care, including living wages and benefits. An of compensation for early childhood education careers in Washington demonstrates the need to increase wages to achieve parity with other teaching professions.

“Access to child care is fundamentally tied to a thriving workforce and benefits healthy child development and family economic security,” said Deeann Burtch Puffert, CEO of Child Care Aware of Washington. “This investment in the early childhood education workforce can finally move the needle toward improving child care workforce compensation and provide professional development opportunities that improve recruitment, retention and quality.”

“Communities of color are historically the communities most impacted by policy decisions, yet policy leaders often lack direct connection, understanding and accountability to those communities,” said LaToya Holmes-Ware, co-executive director of Pathwaves WA. “This investment in Pathwaves’ model of elevating collective, racially diverse leadership is a critical component of long-term system change for early childhood in Washington.”

Additionally, the 91�� will leverage existing relationships with Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Promise program to provide an early pathway entry for students from communities that traditionally are excluded from higher education to the profession and provide much-needed additional capacity to early childhood education programs.

The gifts from Ballmer Group to the 91�� specifically include:

80 high school internships (10 per year) connected to My Brother’s Teacher at Cultivate Learning, a program in the Seattle Public Schools focused on increasing the number of male Black and brown early childhood education teachers.
1,200 undergraduate scholarships serving at least 600 students in the final two years of their college careers. Creating opportunities for bachelor’s degrees will help Washington meet current and impending supply needs and mitigate loss of teachers of color from the field.
115 scholarships for a Master’s in Early Childhood Education Policy, part of 91��’s new . The 91�� already is working with four other institutions as part of the .
230 Early Childhood Coaching Certificate scholarships. Increasing the number of coaches in early childhood education is part of a quality improvement effort in Washington state. The coaching certificate creates a professional pathway to higher compensation and adds needed workforce.
Additional funding will help support alignment from early learning into K-12 systems, two endowed doctoral fellowships, two endowed professorships and a full-time staff person to focus on recruiting and retaining students of color.

“We still have a need for well-trained, racially diverse early childhood professionals for positive outcomes for children growing up now,” Tuan said. “Funding scholarships thanks to Ballmer Group will remove barriers to accessing postsecondary education and remove potential debt people accrue if pursuing this path, which can be a significant deterrent to entry, particularly for students of color.”

College of Education – 91���� News

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91���� Information School ties for 1st; other 91���� programs place highly in US News & World Report Best Graduate Schools ranking

Q&A: How 12 91���� researchers fell in love with their research

15 91���� professors among new class of members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences

91���� graduate and professional disciplines have strong showing on US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings

91���� graduate and professional disciplines place highly in US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings

$43 million set of gifts from Ballmer Group to bolster early learning programs in Washington state

College of Education – 91�� News

91��’s graduate and professional programs highly ranked by US News & World Report

Cheryl Wright-Wilson and Raymond Wilson bequest supports 91��’s College of Education, School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine

91�� Information School ties for 1st; other 91�� programs place highly in US News & World Report Best Graduate Schools ranking

Q&A: How 12 91�� researchers fell in love with their research

15 91�� professors among new class of members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences

91�� graduate and professional disciplines have strong showing on US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings

91�� graduate and professional disciplines place highly in US News’ Best Graduate Schools rankings